Portrait of an Addict as a Young Man: A Memoir - Rilegato

Clegg, Bill

Rilegato

ISBN 10: 0224089072 ISBN 13: 9780224089074

Casa editrice: Jonathan Cape, 2010

Riassunto

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.

Su questo libro

Recensione:

"

It's a remarkable achievement when a writer can evoke the most desperate episodes of addiction with the unflinching honesty required to make such a memoir worth reading, yet somehow manage to completely transcend sleaze, sordidness and vapid self-justification. Bill Clegg's story of a man - largely locked in hotel rooms, engaged in a desperate, heart-wrenching battle with himself - is destined to become a cult classic of writing on drug addiction.

" (Irvine Welsh)

"Bill Clegg's Portrait of an Addict as a Young Man stands up to Frederick Exley's great memoir of alcoholism, A Fan's Notes. It is perhaps even higher praise to think of Portrait of an Addict as a Young Man as Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye on crack. But really, finally, forget the comparisons. Read the book." (Michael Cunningham, author of The Hours)

"A Portrait of an Addict as a Young Man is an instant classic. Anybody who knows anything about addiction will feel morally altered by this book. To an extraordinary degree, it has both beauty and truth. It goes beyond its own revelations to become a book for everybody, a work of art. I suppose we live for the magic of these things." (Andrew O'Hagan)

Descrizione del libro:

A masterful account of a crack-addict's freefall

Su questa edizione

• Editore: Jonathan Cape
• Data di pubblicazione: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0224089072
• ISBN 13: 9780224089074
• Rilegatura: Copertina rigida
• Numero di pagine: 240