Everybody started with such a strong premise. A new thesis on bodily autonomy and how it relates to society was going to be woven in front of our eyes, centering around a contemporary of Freud’s who preached sexual revolution as a foundation to societal revolution. The first few chapters are electrifying; gripping in a way that few nonfiction books are.

But then… perhaps Laing was trying, in her own book, to reinforce the arc of Reich’s own life. Where the second half of Reich’s life saw him slowly relegated to irrelevancy on the fringes of the scientific frontier, Everybody seems to meander through it’s own second half, never quite reaching the thesis hinted at in the early chapters.

I was left with some interesting historical discoveries, but no framework to put them in.