LOVE

"A feast for the senses...and a roadtrip to heartbreak"

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Though I may wish to leave, that cannot be.

There is no going back to those days, before Angela, before acid.

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1968. A dozen Liberation Fronts are fighting the war for all our freedoms.

Everything must be torn away, ripped down like worn fabrics heavy with dust.

Let light and air pour in, limitless light.

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At this great party in history, a young man and a young woman catch each other’s eye.

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Simon is a 19-year-old dropout in London, riding the exhilaration of iconoclastic protest. Bright flares of liberation on America's West Coast draw him like a grail. Arriving in San Francisco, he finds a fire igniting whose flames must engulf the whole world.

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There he falls for the enigmatic, secretive, drug-dealing Angela. But she still longs for her former lover Jesse. Never sure what their relationship consists of, Angela and Simon set out across continents, joining the streams making their way to the East in a quest to find Jesse in India.

 

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Love, by Andrew Sanger

COMMENT & REVIEWS

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Turn On, Tune In and Grow Up

The author carries us across the Atlantic and on a journey through Europe, Africa and Asia. His own life of travelling and observation makes the tale a feast for the senses. All the senses. Sights, tastes and smells that we would expect from a veteran travel writer. But also the unexpectedly visceral, sensual, pangs of hunger and lust, yearnings and learnings of the body and soul, that go far beyond the generally permitted sharings of the travelogue. Some people might not be comfortable. For the non-judgemental reader, the novel packs a very heady hit. - LAURENCE PHILLIPS (author, journalist)

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Brilliant portrait of a lost time

I loved this novel. Andrew Sanger has either total recall or he’s done some meticulous research. I’m dazzled by his ability to summon up the reality with such vividness. Sanger is there, sharp-eyed and observant, as we watch his young hero and the older woman he falls for with our fingers crossed that he’s going to survive. A tour de force and a thrilling ride back into the years of innocence. - CASSANDRA CLARK (novelist, reviewer)

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​Those acid days...

LOVE is about an age-old love triangle of love and betrayal. But this is only one part of the tale. Andrew Sanger writes with brio about that period of intense fusion of love and sex, and drugs and spirituality in the late 60s early 70s and the backdrop to the unique alchemy which was the testing of boundaries that a great part of the youth in the Western World was engaged in. Spectacular and worthy of the most intrepid travellers, all who have done the trip overland will revel in the minutely detailed descriptions of places and situations. Compelling reading that keeps up the pace not only with the miles covered but also with his capacity to endure leaving his ‘youthful folly’ behind. - CAROL HIGHFIELD (reader)

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A sensuous tale of travel, change, dropping out and, of course, love

The book centres around a young man, Simon, a drop-out in the 60s. We join him on his restless travels with his difficult girlfriend, Angela. Their lives are peppered with drugs, sex and a feeling of trying to escape, be free and to live differently - against a backdrop of political change. I just had to keep turning the pages... I could feel the dust on my face, the scent in the air. Highly recommended. - REBECCA ALDRIDGE (reader)

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Vibrant trip to an intense era
How much of this picaresque narrative of life and heartbreak on the road mirrors Andrew Sanger's own experiences does not really matter though one suspects there may be some coincidences. The novel is told by both a first person and third person narrator which brings different layers of self-reflection to the fore. The story flows with wonderfully vivid description expressing the intensity of youthful experience, yearning and sense of injustice. The account of an intense acid trip is a stand-out piece of writing shimmering with authenticity. - DEBORAH FRIEDLAND (reader)

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The hippy trail to broken hearts
This fast-moving but slightly dreamy novel takes the reader on a touching journey of intense love and personal anguish, set against a period of dynamic political and social change. It beautifully captures the upheavals of the sixties, as its protagonist travels through the US, Europe, North Africa and finally takes the "hippy trail" to India. It ends on a note of sad insight. - AMAZON READER ("Mrs Kindle")

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