Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up To Me by Richard Farina

 

Fantastic lost classic of the 1960s. Farina takes on the end of the Beats era and the coming of the hippies. 

To say it's ahead of its time is to understate the matter completely. Farina's prose is ur-Pynchonian. The inappropriateness of the sexual posturing is beside the point. Complete versimilitude of the unhinged, drug-addled young ambitious tormented mind.

Still plodding through this. By the middle some of the gorgeous language surprise of the beginning has begun to wane - the plot itself is a little limp and undergrad hi-jinks ish.

This Is Happiness by Niall Williams

 

Crazy beautiful prose. Has to be read slowly, almost word by word. 

Martian Time-Slip by Philip K. Dick

 

More PKD. He writes sci-fi, but is really interesting in how he addresses human relationships and psychological health under that genre.

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

 

Great - but prefer its companion book below.