I Ran into Some Trouble

Peggy Caserta, founder of the famous Haight-Ashbury hippie boutique Mnasidika and lover and girlfriend of Janis Joplin, was a Louisiana homecoming queen turned airsick stewardess who eventually landed in 1960s San Francisco and set up shop.

Her store was a hang-out for the Grateful Dead and Big Brother and the Holding Company; it was where Wes Wilson’s posters hung, where Bill Graham sold concert tickets, and where Owsley’s LSD was enjoyed.

Caserta’s world of psychedelic peace, love, LSD, and rock kaleidoscoped into bereavement, heroin addiction, prison, and desperation. She was hated, betrayed, and self-exiled, and after many, many years has recovered, returning home to the bayou to care for her mother with dementia.

Now Caserta is giving a new generation an inside look into a revolution—both countercultural and personal—in her new memoir. It’s the celebration of a transitional time in history and an attempt at redemption.