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Be Not Content: A Subterranean Journal
Be Not Content is a coming-of-age novel set in San Jose, California, in the mid 1960s—describing William Craddock’s experiences as a young acidhead. This is a hip, profound, and wonderfully-written book, a unique chronicle of the earliest days of the great psychedelic upheaval. Be Not Content is filled with warmth and empathy, tragic at times, and very funny in spots, a wastrel masterpiece where laughter plays counterpoint against the oboes of doom. A mystical underground masterpiece that’s been virtually unobtainable for years. Brought back to life by Transreal Books via an agreement with Craddock’s estate.
- GenresFictionContemporary
339 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 8, 1970
About the author
William J. Craddock
3 books6 followersWilliam J. "Billy" Craddock (July 16, 1946 – March 16, 2004) was an American author who published two novels in the early 1970s chronicling psychedelic and biker culture in California in the 1960s. Doubleday published Craddock's books Be Not Content: A Subterranean Journal in 1970, and Twilight Candelabra in 1972. Craddock has been called one of the seminal chroniclers of the psychedelic period.
Craddock was born July 16, 1946, in San Jose, CA; son of William O. (an executive) and Camille J. (Hatch) Craddock. He grew up in Los Gatos, California. He graduated from Los Gatos High School in 1964 and moved to San Jose to attend San Jose State College.
Craddock was editor of the underground newspaper The Mobius Strip, in 1966 and 1967. Craddock also wrote a column for the Los Gatos Times-Observer and, later, for a weekly in Santa Cruz, California. In 2007, the family of Neal Cassady republished Craddock's February 3, 1968 column eulogizing Cassady, whom he'd met at a party thrown by Ken Kesey near San Francisco. "The faster-than-light, holy beat power behind On the Road is gone. Cody, the incredible, always moving, sad-mad Dharma Bum is dead" Craddock wrote.
He married Carole Anne Bronzich on November 27, 1967. The marriage ended in divorce. He married Teresa Lynn Thorne on July 27, 1975, and moved to Santa Cruz, California, where he lived until his death in 2004. In Santa Cruz, Craddock operated a retailer of restored vintage motorcycles with musician Patrick Simmons of the Doobie Brothers.
Be Not Content: A Subterranean Journal was published in 1970. The book is structured as a story within a story: Abel gives the book manuscript to his friend Curt, who is on an LSD trip. The manuscript is then found by a friend named "mindless Eddie" (a result of too much LSD) who then eats it page by page.
A follow-up called BackTrack was written but was rejected by Doubleday. Craddock fulfilled his contractual agreement with a third novel, Twilight Candelabra, an esoteric and pornographic horror story and the last novel published in his lifetime.
Craddock was born July 16, 1946, in San Jose, CA; son of William O. (an executive) and Camille J. (Hatch) Craddock. He grew up in Los Gatos, California. He graduated from Los Gatos High School in 1964 and moved to San Jose to attend San Jose State College.
Craddock was editor of the underground newspaper The Mobius Strip, in 1966 and 1967. Craddock also wrote a column for the Los Gatos Times-Observer and, later, for a weekly in Santa Cruz, California. In 2007, the family of Neal Cassady republished Craddock's February 3, 1968 column eulogizing Cassady, whom he'd met at a party thrown by Ken Kesey near San Francisco. "The faster-than-light, holy beat power behind On the Road is gone. Cody, the incredible, always moving, sad-mad Dharma Bum is dead" Craddock wrote.
He married Carole Anne Bronzich on November 27, 1967. The marriage ended in divorce. He married Teresa Lynn Thorne on July 27, 1975, and moved to Santa Cruz, California, where he lived until his death in 2004. In Santa Cruz, Craddock operated a retailer of restored vintage motorcycles with musician Patrick Simmons of the Doobie Brothers.
Be Not Content: A Subterranean Journal was published in 1970. The book is structured as a story within a story: Abel gives the book manuscript to his friend Curt, who is on an LSD trip. The manuscript is then found by a friend named "mindless Eddie" (a result of too much LSD) who then eats it page by page.
A follow-up called BackTrack was written but was rejected by Doubleday. Craddock fulfilled his contractual agreement with a third novel, Twilight Candelabra, an esoteric and pornographic horror story and the last novel published in his lifetime.
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Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
January 25, 2017
I remember seeing this book in the shops back in the early 70s but I didn’t read it then. For the past 10 years or so I’ve been looking for it and finally bought a stained and tattered copy from an Amazon seller for $6.00.
The events of William Craddock’s autobiographical novel take place in and around San Jose circa 1965-1967. I was there then, attended San Jose State College, hanging out most nights at Jonah’s Wail (called simply “The Wail” in Craddock’s book). I knew personally some of the people mentioned here and remember many of the events. At the time too timid to go all the way, nonetheless I walked beside them on part of their journey. In a real sense, these people were martyrs. Many died or went completely insane. To them, psychedelics threw open a door and they just walked right in. Turn On Tune In Drop Out wasn’t just a clever catchphrase. All the complex idiosyncrasies of everyday life were dismissed as “hang ups” in the relentless quest for cosmic consciousness.
Craddock’s language is brilliant and disturbing, at least as good as Kerouac or Kesey, not to mention Hunter Thompson. His narrative follows the movement from dream to nightmare, the straight world fighting back and the drugs themselves increasingly colliding with the demands of ego.
In the years that followed, psychedelics became recreational, flower-power and peace-and-love became happy, feel-good slogans for lightweight hippies who melded their alternative pursuits with everyday establishment activities. I remember I had a housemate who used to drop a tab of mescaline before going to work as a telephone operator for Ma Bell.
But something was won. We are more enlightened today. It’s a little hard to see in this troubled 21st Century, but progress has been made. There is an undercurrent of openness, a yearning for justice, equality, humor and beauty continuously struggling against the darker forces. To a great extent we owe this to those brave and foolhardy pioneers of the psychedelic underground.
The events of William Craddock’s autobiographical novel take place in and around San Jose circa 1965-1967. I was there then, attended San Jose State College, hanging out most nights at Jonah’s Wail (called simply “The Wail” in Craddock’s book). I knew personally some of the people mentioned here and remember many of the events. At the time too timid to go all the way, nonetheless I walked beside them on part of their journey. In a real sense, these people were martyrs. Many died or went completely insane. To them, psychedelics threw open a door and they just walked right in. Turn On Tune In Drop Out wasn’t just a clever catchphrase. All the complex idiosyncrasies of everyday life were dismissed as “hang ups” in the relentless quest for cosmic consciousness.
Craddock’s language is brilliant and disturbing, at least as good as Kerouac or Kesey, not to mention Hunter Thompson. His narrative follows the movement from dream to nightmare, the straight world fighting back and the drugs themselves increasingly colliding with the demands of ego.
In the years that followed, psychedelics became recreational, flower-power and peace-and-love became happy, feel-good slogans for lightweight hippies who melded their alternative pursuits with everyday establishment activities. I remember I had a housemate who used to drop a tab of mescaline before going to work as a telephone operator for Ma Bell.
But something was won. We are more enlightened today. It’s a little hard to see in this troubled 21st Century, but progress has been made. There is an undercurrent of openness, a yearning for justice, equality, humor and beauty continuously struggling against the darker forces. To a great extent we owe this to those brave and foolhardy pioneers of the psychedelic underground.
November 26, 2008
The best LSD memoir I've ever read, both because it was written THEN and not retrospectively, and also because of the urgency of Craddock's writing. Unlike Robert Stone's cynical, priggish "Prime Green" (which, inexplicably, was a bestseller while BNC languishes in obscurity) or "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test" (too Tom Wolfe-y), 'Be Not Content" surges and spins with exuberance and color and magic. There are the dark times, too, teetering on the cusp of forever-never and sayin "how do" to the Void. Craddock passed away a few years ago but I recently tracked down an address for his widow and wrote to her and received a lovely letter back. It is such a tragedy that this book is so sparsely read and little-known. Find it! Read it!
September 21, 2012
Almost completely unknown among the various chronicles of life in 1960s America (Thomas Wolfe's "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test" comes to mind), this book is astoundingly well-written and perceptive, considering that Craddock was only 21 when he finished it. It's an autobiographical tale of his experiences (in the form of his alter ego Abel Egregore) as, first, a member of the Night Riders motorcycle club in southern California, and later as a hippie "acid freak" seeking enlightenment through near-constant experimentation with LSD and marijuana. At least, it seemed constant; he and his companions are almost constantly high, or in the process of getting high, and he writes about these experiences with the raw clarity of someone who had only recently experienced them. He was there, he witnessed the "revolution," and thankfully he wrote about what he saw.
Although the descriptions sometimes run on over-long, Craddock is often at his best when he's describing what it's like to be high on acid. He often differentiates between time as it is experienced during a trip, and time as it is normally experienced, and how the hallucinations tend to distort one's sense of time, as well as all other senses. As with his own experience of the events, it is often difficult to tell which parts of his trips are real -- did that conversation with his friend Preston really take place, or was it part of the hallucination? -- and which parts are just chemically induced sensory distortion.
Ultimately "Be Not Content" is something of a cautionary tale, as Craddock/Egregore sees that his chemistry experiments don't seem to be getting him any closer to understanding the nature of reality or the people around him. But it's also a vivid picture of life among the hippies in mid-'60s San Francisco/San Jose. I was barely in grade school when all that happened, but there really was a time like that, and there really were people like that, wearing tie-dyed shirts and flowers in their hair and waving peace signs and believing that they could change the world and that they were on the verge of something big, man, REALLY big. Eventually the disillusionment would set in, but for a brief moment, some people really believed that the collective consciousness of mankind would see a new dawn through the power of drugs. Almost 50 years down the road it all seems hopelessly naive, but for Craddock and his friends it was serious business.
Really, if you have any interest at all in the '60s counterculture, you MUST read this book.
Although the descriptions sometimes run on over-long, Craddock is often at his best when he's describing what it's like to be high on acid. He often differentiates between time as it is experienced during a trip, and time as it is normally experienced, and how the hallucinations tend to distort one's sense of time, as well as all other senses. As with his own experience of the events, it is often difficult to tell which parts of his trips are real -- did that conversation with his friend Preston really take place, or was it part of the hallucination? -- and which parts are just chemically induced sensory distortion.
Ultimately "Be Not Content" is something of a cautionary tale, as Craddock/Egregore sees that his chemistry experiments don't seem to be getting him any closer to understanding the nature of reality or the people around him. But it's also a vivid picture of life among the hippies in mid-'60s San Francisco/San Jose. I was barely in grade school when all that happened, but there really was a time like that, and there really were people like that, wearing tie-dyed shirts and flowers in their hair and waving peace signs and believing that they could change the world and that they were on the verge of something big, man, REALLY big. Eventually the disillusionment would set in, but for a brief moment, some people really believed that the collective consciousness of mankind would see a new dawn through the power of drugs. Almost 50 years down the road it all seems hopelessly naive, but for Craddock and his friends it was serious business.
Really, if you have any interest at all in the '60s counterculture, you MUST read this book.
December 25, 2022
If only this journal was edited a bit more! The first few chapters are golden. After that some incoherence seeps in, when it is becoming vital to bind all words together. Some chapters could have been thrown out altogether. Still, there are remarkable passages on the spiritual journey embarked on by these pioneers.
Read in October 2022 in Amsterdam.
Read in October 2022 in Amsterdam.
September 8, 2021
I read this book when it came out. The author was my cousin and I heard some of the stories around the dinner table when Billy came by to visit. He wrote this in 1967 when I was 12.
June 29, 2012
Full disclosure: This is my cousin Billy who I always admired. He was a surfer, a biker in a Los Gatos gang that rode with the Hell's Angels, then he was a hippie just in time to experience the Summer of Love, and the winter of its discontent. This book is on par with On the Road or One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest as a chronicle of a certain time and place, a generational watershed event. Billy published this book before he turned 21. He published one more book, a sort of science fiction/mystical tale called Twilight Candelabra. Then he rested on his laurels you might say, in the Santa Cruz mountains. I spoke with him shortly before his death and we talked about this book. He said that he had signed away the rights to the publisher and didn't care if it was republished or not. He wouldn't make any money. He was writing, I suppose, but only for his own enjoyment. He didn't try to get anything published, apart from some columns he wrote for a Santa Cruz weekly.
This is a really great book that tells what it was like around San Francisco in the 60s. Aside from the historical interest, it is a great first novel with great characters and it tells a great story. If you can find a copy of it they are worth a lot now as collector's items, but I believe that it has been published and is now available in e-book format.
This is a really great book that tells what it was like around San Francisco in the 60s. Aside from the historical interest, it is a great first novel with great characters and it tells a great story. If you can find a copy of it they are worth a lot now as collector's items, but I believe that it has been published and is now available in e-book format.
May 18, 2009
An amazing book, depressing, sad and cold, but beautiful to the times.
September 13, 2026
First things first:
The phrase "Be not content with this system of things . . ." attributed to Jesus isn't a real bible quote. But in the 1960s, you couldn't easily find that out so let's just move on to the other quotes. Excepting the last one by Tim Leary, they are all expressions of discontent, with Timothy suggesting something you might do about it. And that's what this book is about--and
the ending such as it is--won't bring you closure either. In fact, instead of reading this book you should just be dropping acid.
It turns out it's a lot easier to point out a problem than to fix it. And it's a lot easier to write a review than a book for that reason.
Spoiler alert!!!
Oh, not for the book. For your life. And for my life. The owls are not what they seem. People are all stuck in some sort of narrative that they take seriously, believing it's reality--what their life is about, when, well, it's just not. And there's this thing called "enlightenment" which is the exit from this big mess in which you realise who you actually are--or
equivalently, that there is no you.
But most people, then (1968-ish?) and now don't know this. Unless they've dropped acid. Even me telling you this spoiler isn't going to be convincing unless you take enough mics and see for yourself. And then, you're one of those people in the know.
In 1968, I was one of those people in the know. Now I know a lot less than that.
If the label on your LSD under 'directions for use' are "Turn on, tune in, and drop out!" (Tim's quote at the start) that's exactly what most of the people in this book are doing, or trying to do. Abel Egregore dropped out of his motorcycle gang once he knew the truth and started hanging out with other so-called freaks, taking more and more acid and other drugs as well
hoping to "break on through." They were hoping to kill off their egos which were what was standing in the way of enlightenment.
If you've ever been part of this kind of quest, this book will remind you what that was like. If not, I wonder what you'll make of it. Maybe it looks like anthropology or history.
After we turn on, tune in and drop out, Abel's friend Baxtor says, there's "freak out, fuck up and crawl back." But you can never really crawl back. I couldn't, anyway. And yet I'm still part of the world. I don't know if enlightenment is possible, or merely lots of "satori"s which may feel like enlightenment until the next one. But unenlightenment is definitely possible
and makes one not content, even if you feel content sometimes. Even if you claim to be content.
And what of those who took too much acid and now must be cared for by others? We don't want to say they're enlightened. But they are more content.
The phrase "Be not content with this system of things . . ." attributed to Jesus isn't a real bible quote. But in the 1960s, you couldn't easily find that out so let's just move on to the other quotes. Excepting the last one by Tim Leary, they are all expressions of discontent, with Timothy suggesting something you might do about it. And that's what this book is about--and
the ending such as it is--won't bring you closure either. In fact, instead of reading this book you should just be dropping acid.
It turns out it's a lot easier to point out a problem than to fix it. And it's a lot easier to write a review than a book for that reason.
Spoiler alert!!!
Oh, not for the book. For your life. And for my life. The owls are not what they seem. People are all stuck in some sort of narrative that they take seriously, believing it's reality--what their life is about, when, well, it's just not. And there's this thing called "enlightenment" which is the exit from this big mess in which you realise who you actually are--or
equivalently, that there is no you.
But most people, then (1968-ish?) and now don't know this. Unless they've dropped acid. Even me telling you this spoiler isn't going to be convincing unless you take enough mics and see for yourself. And then, you're one of those people in the know.
In 1968, I was one of those people in the know. Now I know a lot less than that.
If the label on your LSD under 'directions for use' are "Turn on, tune in, and drop out!" (Tim's quote at the start) that's exactly what most of the people in this book are doing, or trying to do. Abel Egregore dropped out of his motorcycle gang once he knew the truth and started hanging out with other so-called freaks, taking more and more acid and other drugs as well
hoping to "break on through." They were hoping to kill off their egos which were what was standing in the way of enlightenment.
If you've ever been part of this kind of quest, this book will remind you what that was like. If not, I wonder what you'll make of it. Maybe it looks like anthropology or history.
After we turn on, tune in and drop out, Abel's friend Baxtor says, there's "freak out, fuck up and crawl back." But you can never really crawl back. I couldn't, anyway. And yet I'm still part of the world. I don't know if enlightenment is possible, or merely lots of "satori"s which may feel like enlightenment until the next one. But unenlightenment is definitely possible
and makes one not content, even if you feel content sometimes. Even if you claim to be content.
And what of those who took too much acid and now must be cared for by others? We don't want to say they're enlightened. But they are more content.
June 29, 2020
Had some good parts, but in some ways, it was the story that I've already heard from many acid heads before
August 1, 2023
LSD changes everything, within and without you, forever
August 10, 2021
Maaaan. Mixed feelings on this one. It was my very favorite novel back when I was into psychedelics, and upon rereading I can't quite understand why, as it ends on a terribly dark and hopeless note, except perhaps that it describes the actual experience of tripping better than anything else I've ever read.
I'm a Christian now and haven't touched psychedelics in 9 years and the desperate fevered cycle of ekstasis, comedown, confusion, and alienation from reality (which invariably drove to more acid - "You got into this with acid. You can get out of this with acid. Take more acid. Take more acid." Abel tells himself on pg 364) dredged up a few too many memories for me. Ironically, though, the hellish trajectory of it all was affirming for me, and consistent with my experience. With cultural interest in psychedelics gaining astonishing momentum over the past few years, this novel should really be much more popular. Psychedelics were and are a dead end.
I'm a Christian now and haven't touched psychedelics in 9 years and the desperate fevered cycle of ekstasis, comedown, confusion, and alienation from reality (which invariably drove to more acid - "You got into this with acid. You can get out of this with acid. Take more acid. Take more acid." Abel tells himself on pg 364) dredged up a few too many memories for me. Ironically, though, the hellish trajectory of it all was affirming for me, and consistent with my experience. With cultural interest in psychedelics gaining astonishing momentum over the past few years, this novel should really be much more popular. Psychedelics were and are a dead end.
December 10, 2008
Having discovered this book in the mid-1980s at the Washington(MO) Public Library, I have read it every few years. It spoke to me because I was a minor freak in a minor freak tribe in Missouri. I think it is truly one of the best first person accounts of the rise of the LSD culture and the "hippies." I still haven't figured out how a small town library acquired a copy of this book, but I am grateful they did and I am grateful it was found by my brother. It has been a number of years since I read it and it will make a nice holiday read. The writing is mediocre at best, but the passion for the subject matter (his life) causes the story to rise above it. Read it if you have ever taken psychedelics. Read it if you want to know what it is like. Read it, if you can find it!
BTW, a used paperback copy (which is what I own) is going for $300 on the interwebs.
BTW, a used paperback copy (which is what I own) is going for $300 on the interwebs.
September 15, 2012
This obscure autobiographical novel written by a 20+ year-old author has been given new life thanks to sci-fi writer Rudy Rucker (http://www.rudyrucker.com/blog/2012/0...). It's a wonderful historic document on the early psychedelic culture of San Francisco, with most of the story taking place before the word "hippie" became part of popular culture. Incredibly lucid, especially considering the nature of the adventures described. I loved it.
October 19, 2012
My boyfriend gave me this book in 2000 and it was the first edition. Someone felt the need to help themselves to the book and it was never seen again. Went on amazon and the first edition was going for $3,700. Jason was a little irritated about that. But I purchased a new copy from amazon that said it was in fair condition. It was in EXCELLENT condition! I love amazon...
April 16, 2010
One man's personal odyssey into the hippie movement in the 1960s. While other books might talk about the drug culture from the outside, this was an insider's journal from lost kid to motorcycle outlaw to acidhead dropout. As cool a read 40 years after publication as it was when it first came out.
February 27, 2012
Its been a long time since reading(1978), but I remember the book being a wonderful glimpse into the hippie culture of the time and seedy side of drug life. I would love to read it again but copies are very rare. Read it if you can.
April 1, 2008
This book has some interesting history about the bay area in the late 60's.
Want to Read
July 1, 2012available from Rudy Rucker:
http://www.rudyrucker.com/transrealbo...
http://www.rudyrucker.com/transrealbo...
July 28, 2012
Some passages are so vivid I almost feel like I need to be talked down after reading them.
February 21, 2014
Seems to capture the spirit of the place and time. Very good.
June 5, 2014
What a weird book. Must be why I liked it so much. Kinda funny, kinda dark at times. Crazy how young the author was when he wrote this.
November 15, 2014
For a random book I found at a thrift store in Santa Cruz 5 stars. Don’t really remember it off hand but lots of drugs and Santa Cruz Los Gatos history.
November 23, 2012
It changed my life
October 16, 2017
Best book ever written on the LSD experience from someone who was there at the outset and did the best, cleanest,purest and most powerful acid ever made. His descriptions of his thoughts and rationalizations while tripping are just magnificent. He would trip for days on massive doses and describes them in a way that only heads would "get". I really believe to appreciate this book you had to have had experienced psychedelic drugs to get the full meaning, understanding an appreciation it. If you have been expierenced you find yourself saying......."Man I've been there!" A truly wonderfully written account of the era from an original head.
Read
December 30, 2017This is easily my favorite book of the year. It's strangely profound yet simple to read. There's a real voice to it and a breathing world of characters. It also helps that it takes place in the area I grew up. Living in Australia and reading about your home in a time you weren't even born yet gave me a strange sense of nostalgia.
I finished reading this book in an ice cream truck at a music festival and gave it to my new co-worker and friend, Raph to read. I think there's something everyone can get from this book but it will always be different. I genuinely can't wait to read this again.
I finished reading this book in an ice cream truck at a music festival and gave it to my new co-worker and friend, Raph to read. I think there's something everyone can get from this book but it will always be different. I genuinely can't wait to read this again.
Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews