Tiger in a Trance

by Max Ludington

Max Ludington has created a stunningly self-assured American road novel that captures the drug induced euphoria and paranoia of a Grateful Dead concert, while simultaneously probing the self-destructive tendencies of its head-strong protagonist.

Traveling around the country in his old Volvo following the Dead for over a year, eighteen-year-old Jason Burke discovers how much more lucrative selling acid is than selling T-shirts. Liberally dabbling in his product, his judgment gets cloudier and he starts snorting heroin and sleeping with his supplier’s girlfriend, a green-eyed beauty named Jane. Jason also meets Melanie, a rebellious one-armed high-school girl who’s youthful abandonment leads her deeper into the nomadic world of the Dead. And as his addiction takes hold, Jason reacquaints himself with an old friend of his late father’s who’s near the end of his days. While he struggles with the ghosts of his own past and his exceedingly tenuous future, Jason has to decide where his heart lies and which road will ultimately take him there.

Genres: Music

386 pages, Paperback

First published August 19, 2003

About the author

Max Ludington is the author of two novels, Thorn Tree, and Tiger in a Trance. His fiction has appeared in Tin House, Nerve, Meridian, H.O.W. Journal, and On the Rocks: the KGB Bar Fiction Anthology. He lives in Brooklyn and teaches writing at Pratt Institute.

Reviews

[Pat Settegast · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked up 'Tiger in a Trance' and have already recommended it to a couple of bookish friends as well as a few musicians. I love the steady blend of prose, plot, and dialogue, and would also love to blaze a bowl with Mr. Ludington and talk craft... but the hidden pleasure of the book is listening along to the shows he's talking about in each chapter. I mean the chapters have complete narrative arcs and serve as both commentaries on the Dead as well as correlation of Life and the Road with, like, documented happenings.

I first noticed this when I was jarred from the text on page 7. A character drops this dialogue bomb of a Grateful Dead set-list: "Lost Sailor-Drums-Space-Saint" and I put the book down and Googled it up... it was a rare set-list; the Dead played it in Richmond, VA on November 1st 1985. Here's a link to a recording: http://www.archive.org/details/gd1985... Furthermore, at the risk of sounding trite, it's an amazing drum solo (even if the recording leaves a little wanting).

Without getting into all the particulars, let's just say the Grateful Dead will be studied like Milton someday--even if only at a handful Eastern seaboard liberal arts colleges. So, I'm working on a short piece about the fall-out of their 1982 show at the Salt Palace: http://www.archive.org/details/gd81-0... Particularly, 'Friend of the Devil,' which--at this show--was good enough to ring tears from a stone.

[Jonas Blank · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent rendering of a particular scene and era that puts the reader inside the head of an 18-year-old Deadhead. While some liberty is taken with the protagonists' vocabulary (he's a high school dropout -- albeit an educated one -- with the vocabulary of a Milton scholar) I found the stylized first person perspective enjoyable. If anything, my personal tastes would have run to a more expansive plot around the Dead and the scene rather than the negative trajectory of drug addiction, but of course, anyone with any familiarity with that scene at all knows the two are tightly linked.

[David Ward · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tiger in a Trance by Max Ludington (Doubleday 2003) (Fiction) (3453).

This is a novel written about the Grateful Dead scene as it existed in the mid-1980's. The tale focuses on the touring Deadheads. As a longtime and hardcore Deadhead myself, this narrative brought back lots of memories.

The author follows a privileged eighteen-year-old named Jason as he comes to love the band, several female tour mates, and heroin.

As the Grateful Dead came to be ever more popular through the Sixties, Seventies, and Eighties, the pre-show parking lot at each night's venue began to morph from a safe haven where out-of-town hippies could hang with the tribe until showtime into an overcrowded zoo of drug tourists and wannabees. Both the band and longtime Deadheads had mixed feelings about this relentless influx of strangers and latecomers. It certainly made tickets and other limited resources more scarce across the entire touring scene.

Even more concerning was that the massive influx of strangers greatly increased the scrutiny of the Dead scene by local police and authorities. The parking lot at the Dead concert venues had for years been almost exclusively self-policed by peer pressure from longtime Deadheads who were well-versed in their tribe's customs and traditions, and which was benignly overseen by the band.

[Reviewer’s aside: Until 1992 or 1993, local police officers who were assigned to work Dead shows invariably agreed that the Deadheads were by far the easiest-to-manage concert crowd that the cops had ever seen. Policing the Dead shows, they said, was a piece of cake compared to managing the crowds that gathered for country, hip-hop, and other rock and roll shows. The difference was the crowd’s drug of choice. (It’s said that if you put five drunk guys together they will start a fight, but that if you put five stoned guys together they will start a band.)]

However, as the band's popularity exploded during the late nineteen-eighties, much of the trust and the brotherhood which had always been hallmarks of the Dead scene began to slip away. As the crowd doubled and tripled in size, a casually criminal element insinuated itself into the crowd. The result was an influx of hard drugs and an increase in bad drug reactions, which resulted in a greater number of both uniformed police and undercover operatives in the crowd. And believe me, there was no form of life on earth held in lower esteem than an undercover narc at a Dead show.

By the time author Max Ludington's novel Tiger in a Trance takes place, much of the love and trust which the old-school Deadheads shared at the concert venues had been replaced by paranoia and suspicion. And to the horror of the Deadheads, this was the point at which hard drugs (those that can kill, like heroin. Ask Jerry and Brent...) began to show up among the Grateful Dead community.

This book provides a glimpse into an amazing subculture. The author has chosen to write about what he knows best in this first novel, and he has creditably captured a moment in a time which was altogether uproarious fun.

My rating: 7/10, finished 8/22/20 (3453), edited 11/17/21.

[Marguerite Hargreaves · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like this Deadhead coming-of-age story. The main character, Jason, is a credible 18-year-old stoner. Initially, I wondered how he afforded his rock 'n' roll lifestyle, then I went along for the ride in the spirit of things. There are a couple of concerts that take place in Virginia, but no details to validate the local experiences. (I only saw the Dead once, in a small venue in the 70s, so what do I know?) The story moves along at a decent pace. There are some nice twists that maintain tension and interest. Max Ludington's writing is unobtrusive, and the dialogue better than I'd hoped. But, I'm not sure Ludington knew what to do with Jason's mother. The character lacks depth and sympathy. Bottom line: I'd read more by the author.

[Jack · Rating 3 out of 5]

A look at deadhead culture filled with interesting anecdotes that don't go anywhere - kinda like talking to a deadhead.

[Cole Farrar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sucker for a coming of age. It’s like Jack Kerouac’s ‘On the Road’, but actually good. It isn’t just about following the Dead in their prime, it bakes in themes of addiction, love, and relationships elegantly. You can see yourself in this story, and be transported back to the era of youth and experimentation with feelings of adrenaline, anxiety, and comfort in the unknown.

[Brennan Donnellan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a surprisingly rich story of a young man in search of direction, all told in the setting of the 1980s Grateful Dead traveling on tour. It might be of interest to others outside the Dead universe because it's well-written.

[Leann Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

The perfect travel companion. A coming of age tale that follows Jason as he tours around the country following the Grateful Dead in the late 1980s. A drug fueled adventure a la catcher in the rye.

[Dan Hammond · Rating 5 out of 5]

An enjoyable read.

[Alex Barrera · Rating 1 out of 5]

With the writing style of a middle schooler, this is as dull as it gets.

[Mark · Rating 1 out of 5]

Supposedly I should like this, since it's "Dead related" and comes somewhat from the author's experiences. Well Max, I was paying to see Garcia when you were yet but a babe in swaddlings, so I suppose the experience you have had (worth fictionalizing) come through a completely different frame of reference- in my day they weren't ever "the Boys"- there was a woman amongst them. And pretty much before Garcia got into junk... which I hope you were NOT writing about from your own experiences, but fear you were. So pity and bully on you, dummy. The book was actually worth identifying with until then...
I never understood why some Dead Heads were OK with Garcia's junk use to the point they needed to have it as baggage for themselves. Stupid, stupid, stupid, and I'm sure he knows it now(too). So... uno estrella. Better luck next time.