She Treads Softly: Nothing Left to Lose

Monday, March 24, 2025

Nothing Left to Lose

Nothing Left to Lose, or, How Not to Start a Commune by Jeff Richards
4/8/25; 272 pages
Circuit Breaker Books

Nothing Left to Lose, or, How Not to Start a Commune by Jeff Richards is a so-so memoir set in the midst of counterculture life in the 60's. As a young college men Jeff Richards and his friend Rick Sager decide to start a commune out in the Rocky Mountains. What follows is a whole series of adventures, communes, drugs, sex, and road trips as they wandering back and forth across the country.

This is Richard's story, but it is one that has been told before and presented better. While reading, the narrative felt unorganized, muddled, and disjointed. Yes, those feelings likely are a reflection of the times and the experiences, but once I finished reading Nothing Left to Lose I just felt sad.

This is recommended for readers who appreciate memoirs about the 60's counterculture. Thanks to Circuit Breaker Books for providing me with an advance reader's copy via NetGalley. My review is voluntary and expresses my honest opinion.

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John Updike's six rules for reviewing:

1. Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.

2. Give him enough direct quotation--at least one extended passage--of the book's prose so the review's reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.

3. Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy precis.

4. Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending.

5. If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author's oeuvre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it's his and not yours?

To these concrete five might be added a vaguer sixth, having to do with maintaining a chemical purity in the reaction between product and appraiser.....Review the book, not the reputation.... Better to praise and share than blame and ban. The communion between reviewer and his public is based upon the presumption of certain possible joys in reading, and all our discriminations should curve toward that end.