Lula Dean's Little Library of Banned Books

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussions of violence, suicide, sexual assault, enslavement, physical and emotional abuse, antisemitism, anti-LGBTQ+ bias, and murder.

Food of the Gods (1993) by Terence McKenna is a book that examines the historical relationship between humans and psychoactive substances. One of the characters in this chapter is fond of tripping on mushrooms.

As the novel opens, 20-year-old Ronnie Childers is sitting in the quaint town square of Troy, Georgia, after ingesting some hallucinogenic mushrooms. It is 2:00 am, but Ronnie notices his high school crush, Lindsay Underwood, approaching him. Although she is lesbian, Ronnie still adores her. Lindsay asks him to help her play a prank on a local crusader named Lula Dean. Lula has recently led a movement to ban many books in the town library and has placed a book box outside her own home called Lula’s Little Library. Lindsay plans to swap out the titles inside the kiosk for the banned books by hiding them beneath the dust jackets of the books that Lula recommends. Ronnie gleefully agrees to help.