SKU: 72940083957

The Light Years: A Memoir

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The Light Years: A MemoirLambda Literary Award Finalist A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice Named a best book of 2019 by Parade The Light Years is a joyous and defiant coming of age memoir set during one of the most turbulent times in American history This stunningly beautiful, original memoir is driven by a search for the divine, a quest that leads Rush into some dangerous places . . . The Light Years is funny, harrowing, and deeply tender. Kate Tuttle, The L. A.

Lambda Literary Award Finalist A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice
Named a best book of 2019 by Parade

The Light Years is a joyous and defiant coming-of-age memoir set during one of the most turbulent times in American history

This stunningly beautiful, original memoir is driven by a search for the divine, a quest that leads Rush into some dangerous places . . . The Light Years is funny, harrowing, and deeply tender. --Kate Tuttle, The L.A. Times

Rush is a fantastically vivid writer, whether he's remembering a New Jersey of 'meatballs and Windex and hairspray' or the dappled, dangerous beauty of Northern California, where 'rock stars lurked like lemurs in the trees.' Read if you loved... Just Kids by Patti Smith. --Leah Greenblatt, Entertainment Weekly

"As mythic and wild with love, possibility, and danger as the decades it spans, you'll read The Light Years with your breath held. Brutal, buoyant and wise to the tender terror of growing up, Chris Rush has written a timeless memoir of boyhood in the American wilderness." --Emma Cline, author of The Girls

Chris Rush was born into a prosperous, fiercely Roman Catholic, New Jersey family. But underneath the gleaming mid-century house, the flawless hostess mom, and the thriving businessman dad ran an unspoken tension that, amid the upheaval of the late 1960s, was destined to fracture their precarious facade.

His older sister Donna introduces him to the charismatic Valentine, who places a tab of acid on twelve-year-old Rush's tongue, proclaiming: "This is sacrament. You are one of us now."

After an unceremonious ejection from an experimental art school, Rush heads to Tucson to make a major drug purchase and, still barely a teenager, disappears into the nascent American counterculture. Stitching together a ragged assemblage of lowlifes, prophets, and fellow wanderers, he seeks kinship in the communes of the west. His adolescence is spent looking for knowledge, for the divine, for home. Given what Rush confronts on his travels--from ordinary heartbreak to unimaginable violence--it is a miracle he is still alive.

The Light Years is a prayer for vanished friends, an odyssey signposted with broken and extraordinary people. It transcends one boy's story to perfectly illustrate the slow slide from the optimism of the 1960s into the darker and more sinister 1970s. This is a riveting, heart-stopping journey of discovery and reconciliation, as Rush faces his lost childhood and, finally, himself.

Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Picador USA
Published: 03/24/2020
ISBN: 9781250251190
Pages: 384
Weight: 0.70lbs
Size: 8.20h x 5.30w x 1.10d
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SKU: 72940083957

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JHI
Birmingham, US
★★★★★ 5
Won't last forever, but my dog loves it
Size: X-Large, Color: Giraffe
My dog, a 90 lb black lab, LOVES these toys. He does prefer the raccoon to the giraffe, but he likes them both a lot. I originally got the raccoon on clearance at Target when looking for a long toy he could play with while he was in a cone recovering from surgery (he likes to be able to hold toys between his front paws and mouth/chew on them, so none of our regular squeaky footballs were long enough for that). He loved it so much I had to find more, so I found this giraffe from the same line of toys. He's a destroyer and he has been able to put a few holes in these toys if I'm not watching him, but they're pretty easy to sew if they need patching. My mother-in-law's dog came over and made a hole so big that the squeakers and lining all came out, but I sewed it back up and it's almost as good as new. They definitely won't last forever, but they have lasted longer than other soft toys we've had in the past.
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Reviewed in the United States on October 19, 2017
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Nancy Dodson-Houck
Grantham, US
★★★★★ 5
My dogs favorite
Size: Small, Color: Bunny
I need this toy! It is my dogs favorite. She even takes this on walks. Ive replaced this on 3 times because it was “eaten” by my daughters dog. I keep it put up and Georgia constantly goes to the spot I keep it and is expecting me to give it to her. Please restock soon
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Reviewed in the United States on May 29, 2026
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Ema
Alexandria, US
★★★★★ 4
My doggo's go-to toy!
It's not the most durable of toys (she's on her third in five years) but I will buy her as many as she needs because she is OBSESSED with it!
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Reviewed in the United States on December 5, 2024
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Amazon Customer
Natrona Heights, US
★★★★★ 5
Nice
Size: Small, Color: Bunny, Size: Small, Color: Bunny
Cute, dog loves it
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Reviewed in the United States on May 5, 2026
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Ranger Sarge
Bozeman, US
★★★★★ 1
Defective toy and inconsistent quality.
Size: X-Large, Color: Raccoon, Size: X-Large, Color: Raccoon
My initial review was 5 stars based on my experience with a previous order (blue raccoon) and the fact my puppy was immediately interested in it. However, I did not give it to her to play with until this past Friday (May 21, 2026) because she had the first one I bought. In a matter of 2 days the seam on the back and at the base of the head unraveled and all of the stuffing was scattered all over the room. I thought I’d found some good, high quality, toys for her but apparently this one was defective because the first one had had a lot of use and I’d still in decent shape. This is too much money to pay for a dog toy that only lasts a day or two so be advised they aren’t all good.
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Reviewed in the United States on April 11, 2026

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