Breathless addiction tale lacks shot of reflection

BOOK OF THE DAY: Portrait of an Addict as a Young ManBill Clegg, Jonathan Cape £12.99 240pp

BILL CLEGG’S memoir of crack addiction and self-destruction is an engrossing and fast-paced read. I started it at noon on a Saturday, and was finished by 4:30 that afternoon. And then I took a breath.

It is disappointingly short on analysis, but admirably long on a fearless portrayal of self. He does not ask for pity, nor does he try to find the cause of addiction in past trauma. He treats the lowest moments in his adult life with frankness and precision.

Clegg was a gifted young literary agent in New York whose life, as a result of addiction, began to collapse just as he and a business partner had established a successful, independent agency. The main story covers several years of his adult life, and a back story glances at scenes from his childhood. But the centre of the book concerns an unrelenting period – just months – during which he spends more than $70,000 on crack, vodka, hotel stays and male prostitutes, ending with a very real attempt to kill himself with thousands of dollars worth of crack in a hotel room over a few days.

As the book begins, he and another addict are scraping residue out of a stem because they are out of rocks. The stem breaks. They crawl on the floor to rescue anything that might be left. They have been at this for five days and six nights without sleep. He’s got $40,000. A month later he’ll be nearly broke, and 40 pounds lighter.

There is plenty of urgency, without any glorification. Crack is, undoubtedly, the least sexy drug there ever was. You feel withdrawal, Clegg tells us, before the effect has worn off. The book’s merciless speed reflects that level of addictiveness. We share his sense of despair when he is surrounded by normal life – his boyfriend, his business partner. To get through dinner parties, polite conversations, work and relationships without crack, he drinks large amounts of vodka. To sleep, he takes sleeping pills. It is only when he is in an alleyway, in public bathrooms, in the back of taxis, anywhere he can get a hit, that we feel relief.

The moment we feel relief, however, the paranoia begins. People in cheap suits begin to follow him. They talk into headsets and wrists. Black government SUVs stake out his hotel room. Taxi drivers are undercover cops. Everybody is in on it. So we crave the salvation of normalcy. And then it starts over.

This effect, to draw us into the vicious circle of addiction in a way that helps us understand it, is quite masterful. And there are scenes of intense pathos, particularly the evening in which Clegg’s boyfriend, Noah, lies in bed beside Clegg and a male prostitute, holds Clegg’s hand, and forgives him for the addiction.

There is one rather fundamental mistake, I feel, that keeps this book from distinguishing itself from other very good self-destruction addiction memoirs (and there are plenty): it is set in the present tense. The attempt to narrate this story from the point of view of the self who experienced it limits the opportunity for fresh analysis that a more honest detachment might compel. It is possible that Clegg is still unable to think deeply and seriously enough about these things to make any unsettling discoveries. The book ends with many sentences that begin with “I wonder . . .” followed by a bit of self-consciously stylish prose. But in fact, no wondering takes place. This is a lazy, sentimental and timid turn for a book that is otherwise unflinching and stoic.

Greg Baxter is the author of A Preparation for Deathpublished tomorrow by Penguin Ireland