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Later Seabrook relapsed, turned the barn at his swagger Dutchess County home into a scientific "research" laboratory. With "research girls" for guinea pigs, Seabrook and his friends "evoked . . . 'gods' and 'devils,' " dabbled in witchcraft and clairvoyance. Once more Seabrook began to drink, was cured again by an impetuous girl who forced him to plunge his elbows into boiling water. This treatment shocked him back to reality, made him realize that "the only way to write a book is to apply the seat of the pants to the seat of a chair —and write it." Result: the year's weirdest autobiography, which is very readable and, despite its elaborate frankness, somewhat superficial.