DALLAS — Lubbock, Texas, native Kimberly King Parsons says that her debut novel, “We Were the Universe,” “is about Texas, motherhood and psychedelics.”
It is also, she says, about sisterhood, grief, nostalgia and how one’s past choices inform the present. Her protagonist and narrator, Kit, is “filthy-minded and irreverent,” so while the book contains both hilariously dark humor and terrible sadness, there also are many pages concerning drugs — all kinds, but LSD and mescaline are Kit’s favorites.
In fact, the story of her teenage experimentation with a powerful decoction of San Pedro cactus goes on so long that the reader may also begin feeling slightly trippy. But Kit is nostalgic about those days, and she doesn’t regret any of it. “Psychedelics prepare you for the craziest thing imaginable on this earth: a new human tunneling through an older human’s body.”
There’s also abundant sex depicted, both gay and straight, fantasy and real. Kit, who is happily married to a very sweet guy, is bisexual. Her fantasies roam freely, as do her memories. (The novel is dedicated to Parsons’ mother, to whom the writer apologized on an Instagram video: “Sorry about all the porn, Mom.”)