Gysin was a painter and composer, and also collaborated with Beat Generation author William S. Burroughs on many occasions.

Described by The Overlook Press (which published a posthumous edition in 1987) as "a powerfully psychological novel", The Process tells the story of a professor named Ulys O. Hanson who sets out on a pilgrimage across the Sahara Desert which turns out to be a hallucinatory experience.

The Process features Thay and Mya Himmer, who are based on John and Mary Cooke, a couple who financed Gysin's 1001 Nights restaurant in Tangier.

John Starr Cooke gave Gysin the large emerald which features as the Seal of the Sahara.

Mary McCarthy found it "a remarkable first work", but it was "skewered" in Vogue, and another reviewer called it a "lengthy experimental white elephant".