''Dealing: Or the Berkeley-to-Boston Forty-Brick Lost-Bag Blues'' is a novel written by
Michael Crichton, his ninth published novel. Authorship credit is shared with his brother Douglas Crichton, resulting in the only time the pseudonym
Michael Douglas
Michael Kirk Douglas (born September 25, 1944) is an American actor and film producer. He has received numerous accolades, including two Academy Awards, five Golden Globe Awards, a Primetime Emmy Award, the Cecil B. DeMille Award, and the A ...
was used. It was originally published in 1970. It was serialized in the December 1970, January 1971 and February 1971 issues of ''
Playboy
''Playboy'' is an American men's Lifestyle magazine, lifestyle and entertainment magazine, formerly in print and currently online. It was founded in Chicago in 1953, by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from H ...
'' magazine.
Plot summary
In order to hook up with his new California girlfriend, a Harvard graduate involves her in an ill-fated plan to smuggle a suitcase full of
marijuana bricks from
Berkeley
Berkeley most often refers to:
*Berkeley, California, a city in the United States
**University of California, Berkeley, a public university in Berkeley, California
* George Berkeley (1685–1753), Anglo-Irish philosopher
Berkeley may also refer ...
to
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
.
Background
Crichton wrote the book with his brother, then 19 years old. He said he wrote it "completely from beginning to end". Then his brother rewrote it from beginning to end, and then Crichton rewrote it again.
Crichton said the novel was "interesting to me because it attacks what is to most people a puzzling area. What really happens to nice, middle-class, well-educated, suburban, bright kids who get into drugs? Why do they get into the position of having these experiences? The book is not sociology; it's fiction, but it pokes at some of these things."
Reception
The critic from the ''Los Angeles Times'' called it an "unremarkable tale" with a "paucity of plot" but thought the ending was "exciting".
Film adaptation
A film version of the book was released in 1972. It was an American independent film directed by Paul Williams. It stars
Robert F. Lyons and features
John Lithgow in his film debut in the supporting role of John, the campus drug dealer.
Barbara Hershey
Barbara Lynn Herzstein, better known as Barbara Hershey (born February 5, 1948), is an American actress. In a career spanning more than 50 years, she has played a variety of roles on television and in cinema in several genres, including weste ...
appears in the role of Susan, the novice drug-courier who loses the bag of bricks on a cross-country flight from
Berkeley
Berkeley most often refers to:
*Berkeley, California, a city in the United States
**University of California, Berkeley, a public university in Berkeley, California
* George Berkeley (1685–1753), Anglo-Irish philosopher
Berkeley may also refer ...
to
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
.
References
External links
*
Dealing: Or the Berkeley-to-Boston Forty-Brick Lost-Bag Blues (1972)at ''
The New York Times Movie Review''
Novels by Michael Crichton
1970 American novels
Alfred A. Knopf books
American novels adapted into films
Works published under a pseudonym
{{US-novel-stub