Portrait of an Addict as a Young Man A Memoir |
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Author:
| Clegg, Bill |
ISBN: | 978-0-224-08907-4 |
Publication Date: | Jun 2010 |
Publisher: | Penguin Random House
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Imprint: | Jonathan Cape |
Book Format: | Hardback |
List Price: | AUD $35.00 |
Book Description:
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This is the story of one of the most gifted, charismatic and successful young literary agents in New York and his catastrophic fall into full-blown crack addiction: a collapse that would cost him his business, his home, many of his friends and - very nearly - his life. An utterly compulsive narrative of extraordinary frankness, we are led through the grimiest back-rooms of Manhattan's underbelly, through scenes of blank-eyed sex and squalor, into the febrile paranoia of a mind gone...
More Description
This is the story of one of the most gifted, charismatic and successful young literary agents in New York and his catastrophic fall into full-blown crack addiction: a collapse that would cost him his business, his home, many of his friends and - very nearly - his life. An utterly compulsive narrative of extraordinary frankness, we are led through the grimiest back-rooms of Manhattan's underbelly, through scenes of blank-eyed sex and squalor, into the febrile paranoia of a mind gone out of control. The story is intercut with terrifying flashbacks to his childhood, where a secret physical condition triggers shame, psychological abuse, and the beginnings of his hidden life and addictive personality.
This is not a book about a literary agent, or publishing, or New York - nor is it a book about recovery and redemption - it is a completely compelling, brilliantly written account of how a dynamic young middle-class professional can find himself finally exposed as a helpless addict, de-railed and alone, living for months on a steady diet of crack cocaine and vodka. Written with great literary skill and originality, this is a memoir of disarming honesty and huge emotional power, but it is also, at its heart, a manifest of pure terror.