First published in 1976, John Farris’s The Fury tells the story of two teenagers whose powers could change the world. Robin and Gillian both possess potentially devastating psychic abilities. Robin is the son of Peter, a government assassin. Peter’s boss, a demented film lover named Childermass, eventually learns of Robin’s power and kidnaps him. Peter is led to believe Robin is dead; Robin is led to believe the same of Peter. Gillian, meanwhile, is Robin’s psychic twin. The book implies that Robin and Gillian have lived several past lives, always connected and always returning after death. Robin realizes this. Gillian does not, and is genuinely confused by her powers.

While Robin and his growing abilities are manipulated by a doctor ordered to keep him placated through sex, Childermass spends his time trying to track down Gillian. Peter, having discovered that Robin isn’t dead, is now searching for Gillian as well.

The Fury is a tawdry, pulpy mix of psychic horror and over-the-top espionage, a collision of the entertainingly sordid and the shockingly vulgar. (Let’s just say the novel goes into a lot of detail about how Robin is seduced by his psychiatrist.) If the plot seems familiar, it’s probably because you’ve seen Brian De Palma’s film adaptation. Farris wrote both the novel and the screenplay. As over-the-top as De Palma’s version was — he was still riding high on Carrie, so he got to indulge every trademark flourish — Farris’s novel is somehow even more flamboyant, stuffed with odd characters and action sequences that sometimes seem to erupt almost at random. That actually works in the book’s favor. It creates a secret world of psychics, assassins, and pervy doctors living in the shadows of ours.

It’s very much a book of the ’70s, and as with any work that epitomizes an era, whether that’s a problem depends on how easily offended the reader is. It mixes Watergate-era paranoia with telekinetic mayhem and even a hint of New Age nonsense. It also features sex scenes that almost read like a parody of ’70s swinger culture — though it’s harder to laugh when you remember Robin is meant to be 14 in the novel. (When De Palma made the film, he was smart enough to cast actors in their twenties and keep the characters’ ages ambiguous.) It’s sordid and trashy in a way few authors could get away with today.

Sordid and trashy, but undeniably entertaining. That’s The Fury.