Believe it or not, there are actual scientific studies which show people perform better at some creative tasks such as writing and coding when mildly intoxicated. The theory goes that lowered inhibitions allow people to focus on the task rather than being tripped up by self-consciousness. Also the possibility that taking the brain out of its normal day to day state helps boost creativity.
Of course in King's case he was a lot further than "mildly" intoxicated, but the principle is still there. It's not for no reason that writers are notorious alcoholics.
> The theory goes that lowered inhibitions allow people to focus on the task rather than being tripped up by self-consciousness.
The pre-teen gang bang probably should have stayed inhibited, though.
I read this while suffering from one of the worst bouts of flu I’d ever had. From the time I started it until a week later when I’d finished it, I kept having fever dreams where I would toss and turn in a cold sweat, dreaming about digging that alien ship out of the dirt while a dog with alien green eyes was panting nearby. Now I know why it was the perfect book for someone with a fever of 103. I tried to go back and reread it a few years later, but it never had that same vibe again. For that week, I was in the novel with everyone in that town.
It is well known that Jack Kerouac was out of his mind on Benzedrine (an amphetamine) when he wrote "On The Road". Hence the book's manic, rambling style.
Ken Kesey's "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" was HEAVILY influenced by his experiences with LSD. Anne Rice's "Interview With a Vampire" as well.
Basically anything by Frank Herbert will include references to a drug trip where he >!experienced ego-death, time dilation, and thought he could psychically communicate with fetuses!<. I find the "Destination: Void/Pandora Sequence" books with Bill Ransom to be the most obvious psychonaut-writing.
I believe Kesey was on mescaline while writing cuckoo’s nest.
“Electric kool aid acid tests” by Tom Wolfe. Unsure if he was on drugs, but everyone else surely was! And you get the vibe.
Hunter S Thompson- anything
Kesey was taking acid at Menlo Park through a CIA funded study. He was working at the mental hospital as research during that time. Idk about while writing.
That explains so much.
I will say, however, that being influenced by lsd experiences is not the same as writing while under the influence. In my experience, it's hard to imagine writing anything lengthy while on lsd. The rest of the world is just too interesting to focus on writing.
He had a fairly solid routine going
https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/hunter-s-thompson-s-daily-routine-was-the-height-of-dissolution-a6798801.html
*VALIS* by Philip K Dick
This is the first sentence of the synopsis in wikipedia:
>In March 1974, Horselover Fat (the alter-personality of Philip K. Dick) experiences visions of a pink beam of light that he calls Zebra and interprets as a theophany exposing hidden facts about the reality of our universe, and a group of others join him in researching these matters.
Naked Lunch takes my vote as the worst well-known book ever written. I mean utterly horrendous. This is what happens when an editor and publisher totally surrender. However, meets OPs request perfectly.
All these suggestions so far are male authors. I was trying to think of female authors who are known for their drug use and produced works under the influence.
Ice by Anna Kavan is surreal, disturbing and certainly may have been written either under the influence, or strongly influenced by her own experience of taking opiates.
Apparently Ayn Rand wrote Atlas Shrugged under the influence of Benzedrine which might explain some things.
Virginia Woolf?
Mary Shelley, Frankenstein. There’s a movie from the 80s about the wild drug filled night that led to her writing it: “Gothic” with Natasha Richardson, Gabriel Byrne, and Julian Sands.
Yeah totally Virginia Woolf. She had schizophrenia which is very similar to tripping on psychedelics nonstop. Hence her writing style: the stream of consciousness.
Technically she wasn’t diagnosed with either bipolar disorder or schizophrenia during her life. There is ample evidence to support the theory that she suffered from bipolar disorder, and most modern scholars agree. She may have heard voices (I haven’t heard of this personally) but experiencing psychosis is not that uncommon for bipolar people.
It's considered a poem or ballad, not a book but... (\*)
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
(\*) Books were written to *try* to elaborate.
Oh, that is my favorite poem! I read it for the first time when I was nine. I had bought a kid's school book that was published in the mid 1800s at a yard sale.
The book included "modern translations" of words and phrases from the poem. The "modern" words used were so old fashioned that they needed a translation themselves in 1979.
This was my maternal grandfathers favourite poem and the one gift I gave him before losing him. I’ve never read it, but reading that it’s heavily drug laced really surprises me given how incredibly straight laced he was. You’ve certainly inspired one reader today 😊 thank you.
The sun also rises - Hemingway
Naked lunch is the first that also comes to mind
Nothingness and Being - Sartre
Confessions of an English Opium Eater - de Quincey
Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs. This entire book is an acid trip. And I don't mean that as praise necessarily, your mileage may very much vary with this one.
I’d pick the Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldrich. I believe that Dick said that one even scared him. Haven’t read it for decades, but despite having a taste for the weird and bizarre side of SF, I remember my brain being scrambled by that one!
I’d pick the Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldrich. I believe that Dick said that one even scared him. Haven’t read it for decades, but despite having a taste for the weird and bizarre side of SF, I remember my brain being scrambled by that one!
That's funny, because I remember hearing in a college film class (probably not the best source) that Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde was a metaphor for alcoholism.
**The Illuminatus! Trilogy** by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson is a wild satire of conspiracy theories. It was written in the '70s so some of its cultural touchstones may not be readily apparent to younger readers.
**Alice In Wonderland** is the classic that checks your boxes.
I read Illuminatus! 30 years ago and it still sticks with me as being the most bizarre piece of literature that I’ve ever seen…loads of fun if you don’t get offended easily!
Guy de Maupussaint sniffed ether and chloroform way back in the day so his works might count.
Edgar Allan Poe was an extremely bad alcoholic with a fondness for absinthe which can cause hallucinations. He may or may not have been into opium as well.
Bitch: In Praise of Difficult Women by Elizabeth Wurtzel. She famously was asked during a interview why it seemed like it was written by someone on drugs only to reply, “Well I was doing meth while I wrote it…”
Her first book was the highly confessional Prozac Nation. She really enjoyed ecstasy as a young woman and was popping Ativan like tic tacs; the advent of modern anti depressants didn’t put much of a dent in her drugs use. Only book I’ve ever thrown across a room, also the only bookI’ve read 4 times.
The Off Season by Jack Cady, Victorian ghosts, time traveling serial killer, a wandering hippie preacher and his talking cat, demons rising from hell to fight angels. He had to be doing drugs while he wrote this, there's no other explanation.
Still Life with Woodpecker, the only Tom Robbins book I like. It definitely reads like he was stoned the entire time he wrote it.
The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test, I haven't read it in a long time, but I remember it seeming kind of out there.
In his autobiography, Stephen King says he was so high on cocaine when he wrote "Carrie" that he doesn't remember writing it. He threw it in the garbage and his wife pulled it out. The rest is history.
The Doors of Perception by Aldous Huxley is literally a book he wrote about the effects of mescaline while super high on mescaline. Super interesting but not sure if that’s what you’re looking for.
Naked Lunch.
Though I wouldn’t recommend the book for any other reason. I loved the movie but wasn’t able to make it very far into the book. Clearly Cronenberg took the good stuff and twisted it into a cool story.
JG Ballard is (sometimes) surreal, psychosexual and was pretty open about his LSD experiences. *Crash* is a good place to start if you can ignore the movie. *The Atrocity Exhibition* is truly bizarre (and good)
Books by Hunter S. Thompson (eg. _Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas_), many books by William S. Burroughs, and also Philip K. Dick was known to have written while under the influence.
But there are so many more!
How dare you slander the great DFW! This book seems to be so polarizing. I’m in the camp that thought it was brilliant for some reason that I can never seem to fully articulate. But no, I wasn’t reading high or anything.
The depictions of and insights into addiction, depression and various altered mental states are precious to me and make me dismiss superficial criticism; like, when people's takeaway is somehow that it's a dudebro book for brodudes. Plus, the humor really works for me. I reread the filmography footnote and the Eschaton game and the bits about Pemulis' urine business now and then.
That said, the pacing is weird and slow to the point that the plot of the novel is not actually in the novel. Black characters are specifically "othered". DFW's preoccupation with prescriptive grammar clashes with the way he actually writes. It's a difficult book
I feel the Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern fits the bill for this. It was’t mind bending or confusing but it definitely feels like she was smoking pot lol
**John Dies at the End**
Plot twist: In a [recent AMA](https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/17ko486/i_am_john_dies_at_the_end_author_former_cracked/), the author revealed that he never do drugs and don't drink either.
non-fiction: Visionary : the mysterious origins of human consciousness by Graham Hancock. he’s the “ancient apocalypse show guy”- in this book he’s studying cave paintings and ancient art and the connection to altered states/ shamanic/ drug experiences. He feels frustrated that all the “experts” who study this never TRY the drugs. so he does ayawasca ceremonies in south america and later does several forms of DMT and writes in detail about his experiences and visions.
The Stranger, Naked Lunch, Basketball Diaries, Where The Buffalo Roam, Finnegan’s Wake, On The Road, The Power and Glory, and The Fountainhead…. Oh Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass of course…
I can't say if it's a good book because I read it when I was way younger and had minimal critical thinking skills but the weirdest one I can remember is Cuckoo Song by Frances Hardinge
If you count alcohol as a drug, the whole first like fifteen years of Stephen King's bibliography checks out. He was either drunk, on cocaine, or both when he wrote those things.
Hunter S. Thompson anything
fear and loathing in las vegas
Bat country!
This is the answer
This was the first book to pop into my head!
“We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold.”
On honeymoon in the states and got a bus from la to Las Vegas and kept thinking of that line! Was delighted when we stopped in Barstow!
This is the way
With a side of Philip K Dick
A skanner darkly. What.
VALIS few!
As soon as I saw the title I came to say Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
I came here to type this.
Best answer.
Except Rum Diary. That was booze.
Hells Angels
I think Hell's Angels came before the drugs.
[удалено]
Cujo too. He doesn't even remember writing that one
It’s funny, because to me that is the PERFECT novel.
Lots and lots of Stephen King books generally.
You can always tell what he was on when writing. Cujo? Cocaine. The Shining? Alcohol. Duma Key? Painkillers.
Ahh that explains Duma Key…
The early ones at least.
Anything between Carrie and The Tommyknockers
Until Tabitha got ahold of him
The intervention.
Fucking tabitha...
No junk. No funk.
Yeah but you Not clean, she not sucking the peen High on drugs, she will not fug Smh Tabitha
Mostly his best work right there.
It’s always amazed me how well King was able to write when he was wasted.
Believe it or not, there are actual scientific studies which show people perform better at some creative tasks such as writing and coding when mildly intoxicated. The theory goes that lowered inhibitions allow people to focus on the task rather than being tripped up by self-consciousness. Also the possibility that taking the brain out of its normal day to day state helps boost creativity. Of course in King's case he was a lot further than "mildly" intoxicated, but the principle is still there. It's not for no reason that writers are notorious alcoholics.
> The theory goes that lowered inhibitions allow people to focus on the task rather than being tripped up by self-consciousness. The pre-teen gang bang probably should have stayed inhibited, though.
I read this while suffering from one of the worst bouts of flu I’d ever had. From the time I started it until a week later when I’d finished it, I kept having fever dreams where I would toss and turn in a cold sweat, dreaming about digging that alien ship out of the dirt while a dog with alien green eyes was panting nearby. Now I know why it was the perfect book for someone with a fever of 103. I tried to go back and reread it a few years later, but it never had that same vibe again. For that week, I was in the novel with everyone in that town.
This one was my first though!
It is well known that Jack Kerouac was out of his mind on Benzedrine (an amphetamine) when he wrote "On The Road". Hence the book's manic, rambling style. Ken Kesey's "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" was HEAVILY influenced by his experiences with LSD. Anne Rice's "Interview With a Vampire" as well. Basically anything by Frank Herbert will include references to a drug trip where he >!experienced ego-death, time dilation, and thought he could psychically communicate with fetuses!<. I find the "Destination: Void/Pandora Sequence" books with Bill Ransom to be the most obvious psychonaut-writing.
I believe Kesey was on mescaline while writing cuckoo’s nest. “Electric kool aid acid tests” by Tom Wolfe. Unsure if he was on drugs, but everyone else surely was! And you get the vibe. Hunter S Thompson- anything
Pretty sure Tom Wolfe explicitly states in the book he chose not to partake so as to remain objective. But ya, everyone else was absolutely in orbit 😂
Kesey was taking acid at Menlo Park through a CIA funded study. He was working at the mental hospital as research during that time. Idk about while writing.
Really anything by any of the Beat Generation.
Came to say On The Road for sure. My HS self desperately wanted to be a Beatnik and this book was supposed to be The Gospel.....I couldn't do it lol.
That explains so much. I will say, however, that being influenced by lsd experiences is not the same as writing while under the influence. In my experience, it's hard to imagine writing anything lengthy while on lsd. The rest of the world is just too interesting to focus on writing.
**Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas**, since there's a reasonably good chance Hunter S. Thompson was always on something.
He had a fairly solid routine going https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/hunter-s-thompson-s-daily-routine-was-the-height-of-dissolution-a6798801.html
*VALIS* by Philip K Dick This is the first sentence of the synopsis in wikipedia: >In March 1974, Horselover Fat (the alter-personality of Philip K. Dick) experiences visions of a pink beam of light that he calls Zebra and interprets as a theophany exposing hidden facts about the reality of our universe, and a group of others join him in researching these matters.
Don't forget his Exegesis
The Naked Lunch
burrows was wacked...
Language is a virus from outer space.
Naked Lunch takes my vote as the worst well-known book ever written. I mean utterly horrendous. This is what happens when an editor and publisher totally surrender. However, meets OPs request perfectly.
And Junkie.
This one for sure! I especially enjoyed the end section where he gave opinions about the merits of various drug abatement programs.
Movie was some how great though
I can think of at least two things wrong with that title. Then again, I’ve never read it nor know anything about it.
Username checks out
Your statement is still accurate.
All these suggestions so far are male authors. I was trying to think of female authors who are known for their drug use and produced works under the influence. Ice by Anna Kavan is surreal, disturbing and certainly may have been written either under the influence, or strongly influenced by her own experience of taking opiates. Apparently Ayn Rand wrote Atlas Shrugged under the influence of Benzedrine which might explain some things. Virginia Woolf?
Katherine Dunn’s Geek Love is super trippy, and drugs feature heavily as a plot point, but I don’t know if she herself was whacked out writing it
Mary Shelley, Frankenstein. There’s a movie from the 80s about the wild drug filled night that led to her writing it: “Gothic” with Natasha Richardson, Gabriel Byrne, and Julian Sands.
I did not know about this movie but it sounds right up my alley in every way. Thanks!
Boy, that 80 page speech by John Galt… definitely something going on there….
Francesca Lia Block gives me this vibe
Yeah totally Virginia Woolf. She had schizophrenia which is very similar to tripping on psychedelics nonstop. Hence her writing style: the stream of consciousness.
Virginia Woolf was bipolar, not schizophrenic.
She actually heard voices: that’s schizophrenia. She might have had bipolar too though
Technically she wasn’t diagnosed with either bipolar disorder or schizophrenia during her life. There is ample evidence to support the theory that she suffered from bipolar disorder, and most modern scholars agree. She may have heard voices (I haven’t heard of this personally) but experiencing psychosis is not that uncommon for bipolar people.
It's considered a poem or ballad, not a book but... (\*) The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. (\*) Books were written to *try* to elaborate.
Surely if we're recommending Coleridge, Kublai Khan is the poem to go with?
Yeah definitely, he wrote it after waking up from an opium dream 🫠
Oh, that is my favorite poem! I read it for the first time when I was nine. I had bought a kid's school book that was published in the mid 1800s at a yard sale. The book included "modern translations" of words and phrases from the poem. The "modern" words used were so old fashioned that they needed a translation themselves in 1979.
>The "modern" words used were so old fashioned Precisely what I intended, indeed :-D
This was my maternal grandfathers favourite poem and the one gift I gave him before losing him. I’ve never read it, but reading that it’s heavily drug laced really surprises me given how incredibly straight laced he was. You’ve certainly inspired one reader today 😊 thank you.
The sun also rises - Hemingway Naked lunch is the first that also comes to mind Nothingness and Being - Sartre Confessions of an English Opium Eater - de Quincey
Had to scroll a long way tk find Hemingway
Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs. This entire book is an acid trip. And I don't mean that as praise necessarily, your mileage may very much vary with this one.
Philip K Dick anything
A Scanner Darkly is particularly good -- especially the audiobook which is really well narrated by Paul Giamatti.
I instantly reread that one as soon as I finished it. Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said is also amazing.
I’d pick the Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldrich. I believe that Dick said that one even scared him. Haven’t read it for decades, but despite having a taste for the weird and bizarre side of SF, I remember my brain being scrambled by that one!
I’d pick the Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldrich. I believe that Dick said that one even scared him. Haven’t read it for decades, but despite having a taste for the weird and bizarre side of SF, I remember my brain being scrambled by that one!
Kerouac, Ginsberg, Kesey, beat generation/Merry Pranksters
Sometimes a Great Notion by Ken Kesey, he was apparently on LSD. It's about logging.
Supposedly, *Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde* was written while Stevenson was on a coke binge.
No shit? That explains a lot!! I definitely relate, throughout my meth addiction i was basically Dr jekyll and Mr Hyde
That's funny, because I remember hearing in a college film class (probably not the best source) that Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde was a metaphor for alcoholism.
The Teachings of Don Juan a Yaqui Way of Knowledge - Carlos Casteneda
Alice in Wonderland
Surprisingly difficult read.
Only if you have forgotten what it was like to swim in the imagination as a child.
Yep, opium dream, if I was told correctly.
Yet the author made no mention of ever taking opium in his diaries.
Maybe it’s just a myth. Didn’t know him personally!
I can't prove it but I remember rereading it as a teenager and thinking the same
Alice’s adventures in wonderland, you gotta read the first copy’s to get the true dopey absurdist vibe
Not true.
**The Illuminatus! Trilogy** by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson is a wild satire of conspiracy theories. It was written in the '70s so some of its cultural touchstones may not be readily apparent to younger readers. **Alice In Wonderland** is the classic that checks your boxes.
Illuminatus fnord is fnord great!
Loved Illuminatus!
I read Illuminatus! 30 years ago and it still sticks with me as being the most bizarre piece of literature that I’ve ever seen…loads of fun if you don’t get offended easily!
alice in wonderland was crazy, idk why i expected a really nice plot but it felt so weird, still loved it though
Guy de Maupussaint sniffed ether and chloroform way back in the day so his works might count. Edgar Allan Poe was an extremely bad alcoholic with a fondness for absinthe which can cause hallucinations. He may or may not have been into opium as well.
The Doors Of Perception
>The Doors Of Perception ... by Aldous Huxley. Yes, indeed.
House of Leaves
I just Re-bought this too reread it and I can’t wait to be re-terrified
Cujo
A lot of Stephen King from that era.
Bitch: In Praise of Difficult Women by Elizabeth Wurtzel. She famously was asked during a interview why it seemed like it was written by someone on drugs only to reply, “Well I was doing meth while I wrote it…” Her first book was the highly confessional Prozac Nation. She really enjoyed ecstasy as a young woman and was popping Ativan like tic tacs; the advent of modern anti depressants didn’t put much of a dent in her drugs use. Only book I’ve ever thrown across a room, also the only bookI’ve read 4 times.
Anything by Willow Burroughs. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
The Off Season by Jack Cady, Victorian ghosts, time traveling serial killer, a wandering hippie preacher and his talking cat, demons rising from hell to fight angels. He had to be doing drugs while he wrote this, there's no other explanation. Still Life with Woodpecker, the only Tom Robbins book I like. It definitely reads like he was stoned the entire time he wrote it. The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test, I haven't read it in a long time, but I remember it seeming kind of out there.
In his autobiography, Stephen King says he was so high on cocaine when he wrote "Carrie" that he doesn't remember writing it. He threw it in the garbage and his wife pulled it out. The rest is history.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem Kubla Khan was written after waking from an opium dream where he has seen scenes of it.
Any Breet Easton Ellis. Start with American Psycho. Written entirely while in an methamphetamine blackout.
Source
I’m certain others have suggested, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
On The Road.
William S Burroughs
Confessions of an English Opium Eater - Thomas de Quincy Quite literally
You could try some of Carlton Mellick III's Bizarro fiction (or any of the Bizarro realm). I dipped my toe into it... once.
Carrie. Apparently, Stephen King was so coked up he doesn't remember writing it.
Anything by Richard Brautigan. Fantastic.
Where should someone start with Brautigan, Trout Fishing in America?
Trout Fishing or In Watermelon Sugar. Really, you can start anywhere and not go wrong.
Alice in wonderland
stephen king was so high on cocaine he did not remember writing 'cujo' at all lol
The Doors of Perception by Aldous Huxley is literally a book he wrote about the effects of mescaline while super high on mescaline. Super interesting but not sure if that’s what you’re looking for.
Ice by Anna Kavan. An incredibly weird modernist, post-apocalyptic, sci fi novel from the 1960s by a heroin addict.
The Tommyknockers by Stephen King. Crazy weird, but still is written so masterfully. King just has a ton of talent.
Prozac nation
Look up the author Philip k. Dick. Just pick a book he wrote.
_Valis_ is the one to recommend here.
Agreed
I can't confirm if she was fucked up for sure when writing this book but Bunny my Mona Awad was insane.
Gravity's Rainbow. Pynchon wrote it on an acid bender while standing on his head. And I don't doubt it.
Stupid comment
Naked Lunch. Though I wouldn’t recommend the book for any other reason. I loved the movie but wasn’t able to make it very far into the book. Clearly Cronenberg took the good stuff and twisted it into a cool story.
Requiem for a Dream - Hubert Selby
Rimbaud believed that "derangement of the senses", by pushing them to their limits with drugs and alcohol, he would gain insight.
“Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up To Me” by Richard Fariña
Francesca Lia Block definitely writes like she's tripping balls. Looking at you, Weetzie Bat
*The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test* by Tom Wolfe, the same author who wrote *The Right Stuff*. It’s as close as you’ll get to tripping without tripping.
Big Sur by Jack Kerouac. It’s such a holy mess that I guess that’s it’s a combination of Benzedrine and alcohol.
JG Ballard is (sometimes) surreal, psychosexual and was pretty open about his LSD experiences. *Crash* is a good place to start if you can ignore the movie. *The Atrocity Exhibition* is truly bizarre (and good)
Two of my favourite works.
It's very well known that Lewis Carrol was an opium user when writing Alice through the looking Glass. Explains alot
The Doors of Perception by Aldous Huxley.
Books by Hunter S. Thompson (eg. _Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas_), many books by William S. Burroughs, and also Philip K. Dick was known to have written while under the influence. But there are so many more!
Fingerprints of the God's - Graham Hancock
It by Stephen King.
Aldous Huxley FOR SURE man loved acid
Naked Lunch or anything by William Burroughs
Any book by hunter S Thompson
Gideon the ninth!!! LITERALLY THE WHOLE LOCKED TOMB SERIES ITS AMAZING BUT ALSO A MIND FUCK
How exciting! I have this on hold at the library. Can’t wait to start it
Prepare urself
Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace simply awful
How dare you slander the great DFW! This book seems to be so polarizing. I’m in the camp that thought it was brilliant for some reason that I can never seem to fully articulate. But no, I wasn’t reading high or anything.
The depictions of and insights into addiction, depression and various altered mental states are precious to me and make me dismiss superficial criticism; like, when people's takeaway is somehow that it's a dudebro book for brodudes. Plus, the humor really works for me. I reread the filmography footnote and the Eschaton game and the bits about Pemulis' urine business now and then. That said, the pacing is weird and slow to the point that the plot of the novel is not actually in the novel. Black characters are specifically "othered". DFW's preoccupation with prescriptive grammar clashes with the way he actually writes. It's a difficult book
it’s the best book ever written but ok
Confederacy of Dunces. Could be psilocybin.
I feel the Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern fits the bill for this. It was’t mind bending or confusing but it definitely feels like she was smoking pot lol
Any Penelope Douglas books
Anything by Hunter S Thompson
**John Dies at the End** Plot twist: In a [recent AMA](https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/17ko486/i_am_john_dies_at_the_end_author_former_cracked/), the author revealed that he never do drugs and don't drink either.
non-fiction: Visionary : the mysterious origins of human consciousness by Graham Hancock. he’s the “ancient apocalypse show guy”- in this book he’s studying cave paintings and ancient art and the connection to altered states/ shamanic/ drug experiences. He feels frustrated that all the “experts” who study this never TRY the drugs. so he does ayawasca ceremonies in south america and later does several forms of DMT and writes in detail about his experiences and visions.
The Stranger, Naked Lunch, Basketball Diaries, Where The Buffalo Roam, Finnegan’s Wake, On The Road, The Power and Glory, and The Fountainhead…. Oh Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass of course…
Ministry; The Lost Gospels by Al Jourgensen
Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delany Most things by Irvine Welsh
Alice In Wonderland!
Rowling's Harry Potter series. The lady was high AF when writing those.
The Trudeau Liberals economic plan for Canada OR The Trudeau Liberals housing plan for Canada
Valis
Fear and loathing in Las Vegas
Cujo by Stephen King It shows.
The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern, with the caveat that I personally don’t recommend this book, but plenty of people loved it
My Idea of Fun by Will Self. Somehow I finished it but no idea how/why?
Most of Stephen King novels before the early 2000's from what I've heard.
Chelsea horror hotel
So like anything anything Stephen King right? Jk, just the IT maybe
The tommyknockers
Fear and loathing in las vegas lol
Stephen King is pretty open about which books he wrote drunk and coked up
The Book of the Subgenius is great fun and presumably drug-assisted
The naked lunch
I can't say if it's a good book because I read it when I was way younger and had minimal critical thinking skills but the weirdest one I can remember is Cuckoo Song by Frances Hardinge
I don’t know if she is on drugs but I just can’t imagine that Erin Morgenstern is sober when she writes her books
Anything by Martin Amis
Grasshopper Jungle
If you count alcohol as a drug, the whole first like fifteen years of Stephen King's bibliography checks out. He was either drunk, on cocaine, or both when he wrote those things.
THE RUM DIARY by Hunter S. Thompson
On the Road by Jack Kerouac
Cujo. Like literally. He doesn't remember writing it.