Interestingly, the further Goldstein moves from music, and the deeper his involvement with radical politics, the more engaging his writing. The energy in the latter half of the book, however, is born of his music criticism; you could consider music criticism as a practice run for the enthusiasm he brought to his socio-political countercultural reportage.

It is no surprise, too, that Goldstein's confusion about love and sexuality starts to intensify in these sections. His queerness is more openly acknowledged, the intensity of his (sexual and emotional) relationship with his wife is explored with candour and sensitivity; in a way, the unshackling of Goldstein's personality via radical politics allows for a kind of DIY psychoanalysis to play out in his thinking. We're still 'strangers to ourselves', then, at the end of the day, something Goldstein realises as time unfolds, in all of its radical complexity.