Clearly Now, the Rain : A Memoir of Love and Other Trips

A Deeply Personal Rumination On The Existential Explanations For The Desperation And Sadness Experienced By Those Suffering From Addiction And Mental Disorder, This Nuanced Memoir Brings To Life The Troubled, Decade-long Relationship Between Eli Hastings And His Friend Serala. At Family Events, Serala Wore Saris And Ate Delicately From Plates Of Curry. But Elsewhere, She Wore A Lip Ring, Designer Shades, And A Cowboy Hat; Would Regularly Drink Frat Boys Under The Table; Would Sleep Less Than Five Hours A Week; And Would Place Herself In Dangerous Situations For Another Bag Of Heroin. Serala's Complex Character And Seemingly Haphazard Choices Are Made Real, From Ill-advised Quests For Narcotics In Mexican Border Towns To Unplanned 50-hour Road Trips From L.a. To New York City. Although Her Dark And Traumatic Journey Concluded Tragically At Age 27, Eli Hastings Writes With Hopeful Resolution About His Unique Friendship--amazon.com, Viewed June 6, 2013. Eli Hastings. This memoir of a relationship with a self-destructive woman is “as elemental, lyrical and cringe-inducing a love story as they come” (Kirkus Reviews). Suspenseful, darkly funny, and devastating, this is Eli Hastings’s true story of his troubled, decade-long relationship with his friend Serala. At family events, Serala wore saris and ate delicately from plates of curry. But elsewhere, she wore a lip ring, designer shades, and a cowboy hat; would regularly drink frat boys under the table; would sleep less than five hours a week; and would place herself in dangerous situations for another bag of heroin. Serala’s complex character and seemingly haphazard choices are brought to vivid life, from ill-advised quests for narcotics in Mexican border towns to unplanned fifty-hour road trips from Los Angeles to New York City. Although her dark and traumatic journey concluded tragically at age twenty-seven, Hastings writes with a sense of hope and tenderness in this “drug, romance and adventure-filled” memoir of their unique relationship (The Seattle Times). “An unflinching account of how it feels to be young and flirting with the abyss in America. The narrator’s observations as he and his friends ride rough across the U.S.A., all pulled to orbit around their friend, lover, and lost soul, Serala, are also an investigation into the dangerously different ways that people respond to addiction. This is an elegy, yes, as if told by a boy who began his quest tutored by Kerouac’s ghost, but became, on this hard road, a man schooled in love by the spirit of the Dalai Lama.” —Rachel Rose, author of Giving My Body to Science A memoir about loving someone you cannot save Serala drank frat boys under the table. She wore saris and ate delicately from plates of curry at family events; elsewhere she wore a lip ring, designer shades, and a cowboy hat and ordered bloody steaks. She wrote volumes of poetry, made amateur films, singlehandedly ran a chapter of Food Not Bombs, and ended up as a fierce advertising agency executive. She often slept less than five hours per week and would, at the slightest excuse, drive from L.A. to New York in a cool 50 hours. In some moments of danger, she split the lips of menacing strangers. And she gave herself over to the casual knives and fists of others for nothing more than another bag of heroin that she had plenty of money for anyway. Clearly Now, the Rain traces the decade-long relationship of Eli Hastings and his friend Serala: from ill-advised quests for narcotics in Mexican border towns through summer road trips, from southern California to Tennessee and on to New York City and Seattle, from 1996 to the very last days of 2004, when Seralas journey concluded tragically at age 27. A deeply personal rumination on the existential explanations for the desperation and sadness experienced by those suffering from addiction and mental disorder, this nuanced memoir brings to life the troubled, decade-long relationship between Eli Hastings and his friend Serala. At family events, Serala wore saris and ate delicately from plates of curry. But elsewhere, she wore a lip ring, designer shades, and a cowboy hat; would regularly drink frat boys under the table; would sleep less than five hours a week; and would place herself in dangerous situations for another bag of heroin. Serala{u2019}s complex character and seemingly haphazard choices are made real, from ill-advised quests for narcotics in Mexican border towns to unplanned 50-hour road trips from L.A. to New York City. Although her dark and traumatic journey concluded tragically at age 27, Eli Hastings writes with hopeful resolution about his unique friendship