Portrait of an Addict as a Young Man (Bill Clegg)

Bill Clegg’s new memoir, Portrait of an Addict as a Young Man, is a beautifully rendered description of his experience with crack cocaine. In a short, blistering book that is at once quite harrowing and (appropriately enough) impossible to put down, Clegg describes a period of his life spent in the grips of the drug while he throws away personal and business relationships that have taken him years to build, until he’s driven to the brink of suicide. It’s a testament to his abilities as a writer that when he says this, I utterly believed him; at no point did I smile to myself and think: ‘oh this guy is just on a little bender.’ To say that he survived is hardly a spoiler, but it’s no less a miracle after you read about exactly what was entailed in his descent. Interspersed with the addiction narrative are chapters both dreamlike and painful in which Clegg (tellingly switching to the third person) describes events from his past, notably a health issue he suffered as a child that may or may not have foreshadowed some of his later problems. While this choice might frustrate those looking for easy answers, I found it to be compelling and realistic; in my life, it’s rarely the case that straight lines can be drawn from one event to another with anything but high degrees of uncertainty. Moreover, as Clegg also points out, the past – even that in which we have participated – is often mutable and difficult to ascertain.
The purpose of this book, as I saw it, was less to answer questions than (and even here, often implicitly) to pose them. I wanted to know exactly what Clegg was trying to escape: not surprisingly, I found answers in a story that resonated to some extent with my own (which of course is always the sign of a good memoir, i.e., we find pieces of our lives in the narrative). I read about a man in his twenties coming to terms with his attraction to other men, and what this meant in a society that was and still is (at least as I see it) reeling not only from the terror of AIDS but also the pervasive homophobia that so often leads non-heterosexuals of all stripes down increasingly compulsive and self-destructive paths to find a sense of worth.
I read The Portrait of an Addict as a Young Man as one man’s attempt to escape this society, first by way of reading, and then – when this no longer sufficed – through drugs and sex. In this way I felt empathy for the writer (and, just as important, for myself): I’ve often wondered exactly how we -- by which I mean those of my generation, roughly speaking -- were (and are) supposed to live with ourselves when so many around us (our mentors from the previous generation) are already gone, while those who remain (society) by and large want us dead? I found this to be an important book for reasons that transcend any kind of voyeuristic entertainment or even brilliant writing (although both of these elements are here in ample amounts). Other readers will undoubtedly pick up different threads from their own lives; in this way a memoir like this can serve as a prism, dispersing a beam of light into many colors that radiate outward from a single source.

Comments

[Chris]

Thanks for posting this book. Since reading the excerpt in New York, I have been very excited for the launch. Lucky that you got an advance copy.

[Matthew Gallaway]

Thanks, Chris -- if you liked the excerpt, my guess is that youll love the book!