New Moon: A Coming of Age Tale

New Moon: A Coming-of-Age Tale is Richard Grossinger's intimate memoir of growing up in postwar America, tracing his journey from childhood in New York City through adolescence and college between 1944 and 1965. Set against the backdrop of a rapidly changing nation, the book explores how family, education, friendship, and culture shape the development of identity while laying the foundation for a lifelong spiritual and psychological quest. Moving through P.S. 6, Horace Mann School, Hebrew school, Camp Chipinaw, Grossinger's Hotel and Country Club, and Amherst College, Grossinger chronicles the formative experiences that defined his youth. Baseball, rock 'n' roll, television, the Cold War, and the civil rights movement provide the cultural landscape as he navigates family conflict, social belonging, ambition, anxiety, and self-discovery. At the heart of the memoir is Grossinger's experience with long-term Freudian psychoanalysis. Through childhood and adolescence, therapeutic exploration of dreams, free association, and psychosomatic symptoms becomes a means of understanding fear, alienation, illness, and trauma. As his interests expand, he draws on Jungian psychology, tarot, and esoteric traditions—including the Qabala, chakras, Gurdjieff, and Ouspensky—to develop an integrated vision of psychological and spiritual growth. Both deeply personal and intellectually expansive, New Moon presents coming of age as an evolving process of transformation, revealing how childhood experiences, psychotherapy, and spiritual practice can form a continuous path toward greater self-understanding. This 2027 re-release introduces a timeless memoir that remains as relevant today as when it was first written, offering readers a compelling portrait of one individual's search for meaning amid the cultural upheavals of mid-twentieth-century America.