Discomfort Zone

It makes sense to set a book about emotional well-being in a time before the internet: Before social media waged psychological warfare on our tender self-worth. Before the comments section became the place where fellow feeling goes to die. Turn back half a century to the blazing hot spring and summer of 1971. Sweat drips down spines as cigarette smoke curls into the air. In the clammy basement of a church in Toronto’s West End, four strangers gather in response to an advertised session: “Tired? Sad? Psyched out? Do yourself a solid. Try Group Therapy. It’s new! It’s experimental!” All hang‑ups welcome, we’re told.

In some respects, Back to the Garden seeks to return to an age of apparent innocence, when the culture of wellness and self-actualization was free of jadedness and jade eggs and when the simple act of voicing innermost fears and feelings, in public, could be a...