1. Events
 / Modified jul 15, 2019 11:40 a.m.

The Light Years

Chris Rush's memoir tells a beautiful, often violent story of drug trafficking, gay youth, homelessness, sins of the fathers, and the search for personal freedom in America.

As a child growing up wedged in the middle of a large Catholic family in 1960s New Jersey, Tucson painter Chris Rush was given LSD by his older sister. He was 12. Nearly 50 years later, he published his first book, The Light Years, with the venerated publishing house Farrar, Straus and Giroux. A memoir, the book follows Rush across the country to Tucson, telling a beautiful, often violent story of drug trafficking, gay youth, homelessness, sins of the fathers, and the search for personal freedom in America, in strikingly evenhanded prose. Near the end of the book, he turns 20.

Producer: Mike Powell
Photographer/Editor: Andrew Brown

MORE: Arizona Illustrated Arts/Culture, Arizona Illustrated S5
By posting comments, you agree to our
AZPM encourages comments, but comments that contain profanity, unrelated information, threats, libel, defamatory statements, obscenities, pornography or that violate the law are not allowed. Comments that promote commercial products or services are not allowed. Comments in violation of this policy will be removed. Continued posting of comments that violate this policy will result in the commenter being banned from the site.

By submitting your comments, you hereby give AZPM the right to post your comments and potentially use them in any other form of media operated by this institution.
AZPM is a service of the University of Arizona and our broadcast stations are licensed to the Arizona Board of Regents who hold the trademarks for Arizona Public Media and AZPM. We respectfully acknowledge the University of Arizona is on the land and territories of Indigenous peoples.
The University of Arizona