The Book of Drugs by Mike Doughty
Reviewed by Steve Almond
Mike Doughty makes no bones about it. The former frontman of the band Soul Coughing calls his new memoir “just another drug narrative.’’ His readers, he suspects, “want salacious tales of the debased guy: the cleaned-up guy is intolerably corny. Maybe you just want to read drugs heroin heroin drugs over and over again. When I was getting high, that’s what I read these books for.’’
It’s the kind of insouciance fans have come to expect from Doughty, an indie darling known for his drollery. What’s shocking and fresh about “The Book of Drugs’’ is how vividly it captures the psychic stasis of addiction
Take, for instance, the scene Doughty encounters visiting Cambodia. “The boring light ceded to a conjuration of pink and orange,’’ he writes. “I looked out the window and saw Khmers zipping around on their mopeds, pack animals, magical chaos. I didn’t want to see the temples, I wanted to sit on a bed and watch bizarre exotic life through a window and a screen. Not to be in it, but to long to be in it.’’ It’s an eloquent summation of junkie life - a perpetual waltz of alienation and desire.
Read the full review here: http://articles.boston.com/2012-01-10/arts/30606620_1_drugs-band-ani-difranco
Find out more about the MFA Writing Program here:http://mfagreensboro.org
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