I Love You, Alice B. Toklas!, Bill Friday, Bantam Books, 1968
This novelization of the Peter Sellers-Leigh Taylor Young film is the story of Harry Fine, uptight, stressed-out attorney, whose girlfriend, Joyce, really wants to get married. One day he goes to look for his brother, Herbie, who has taken another path through life and is living with a group of local hippies, and meets Nancy, a free-spirited flower child. She doesn't happen to have a place to sleep that night, so Harry reluctantly brings her to his place. He gets really nervous having her around, thinking that if he makes one wrong move, Nancy, Joyce and/or his parents will accuse him of you know what. The next day, while Harry is at work, Nancy bakes him a batch of "magic" brownies. That night, Harry, Joyce and his parents work on wedding preparations at his place, at which time the brownies are sampled. Everyone gets un-uptight real fast.
Wedding day comes, and Harry, having sampled the free-spirited life, leaves Joyce at the altar. He becomes a hippie, with the hair and the clothes, and finds that his house is the new hippie "hangout". Meantime, Joyce and his parents beg him to return to the "real" world.
This is a light, enjoyable sort of story. There are no deep meanings here, but if you have some free time, you could do worse than this book.
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