Heroin Favorite books about heroin addiction??

[Single KO]

Hey guys, was wondering what your favorite books about heroin addiction are. Here are a few of mine ::

- 'Candy' by Luke Davies
- 'Trainspotting' and 'Skagboys' by Irvine Welsh
- 'Junky' by William Burroughs
- 'Life' by Keith Richards (Keith's autobiography. He discusses his heroin addiction in some detail in this book, although it is not his main focus)
- 'Something Quite Peculiar' by Steve Kilbey (autobiography of The Church singer/bass player. He discusses his 10+ year battle with heroin addiction in great detail throughout four chapters. The rest is great too though.)
- 'Scar Tissue' by Anthony Kiedis (autobiography of Red Hot Chili Peppers frontman. Total douchebag, but still liked some of his crazy ass stories hah.)
- 'Tweak' and 'We All Fall Down' by Nic Sheff
- 'Patrick Melrose' by Edward St. Aubyn

Anyone still read...?

 

[sewerslide.666mg]

transporting is a fun read... have you read the trainspotting sequels I can't rember the names off hand buy I'm going to read them some day I'm a put that shit on my bucket list...

 

[sewerslide.666mg]

porno w already read and skagboys and their might be one more...

 

[Fiction Tales]

The Basketball Diaries by Jim Carroll and Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo by Christiane F are both quite good. Both about young teenage junkies living in New York and Berlin respectively. Based on the books you listed above, I think you’d like these two...

 

[Single KO]

thanks Fiction Tales. I've seen the film adaptation of both of those books and liked them a lot. Def need to check out the books tho...thanks for the rec mate!!

sewerslide - have yet to read Porno, although i recently saw Trainspotting 2, which is based off Porno. I'm def curious to read it, but want to keep this thread specifically in the domain of novels about heroin addiction, and Porno lies outside this as its backdrop deals mostly with the pornography business instead of the ol Salisbury Crag like its precursors Skagboys and Trainspotting.

 

[emkee_reinvented]

Heroin, 'Christiane F. ' that describe's it pretty well. And was a good read.

 

[LopLover]

That's a good selection, especially Candy. It's one of Heath Ledger's first movies and IMHO he gave an Oscar-worthy performance. There's a book called "Smack," that I don't think has been made into a movie but it's a great book by Melvin Burgess. It's a group of English young junkies and their lives in 60s or 70s London, I think.

There's also a hardly-known movie that I think but won't swear was made from a book called "Never Get Out of the Boat" that really gets the details of the life right. It's in LA probably in the 80s, and is about a bunch of guys in a halfway house learning how to live sober. Most of them relapse at least once, with predictable consequences. It's a low-budget indie, but if you can find a copy, it's worth the watch.

There are plenty of newer biographies and autobiographies out since OxyContin switched addiction from the inner city to the suburbs and young, white mediagenic kids from "good families" began dying in large numbers. Most aren't that good but a couple are gems. Permanent Midnight by Ben Stiller is one, A Piece of Cake, by Cupcake Brown, Dry, by Augusten Burroughs, Postcards from the Edge, Carrie Fisher, and Requiem for a Dream, Hubert Selby Jr,

 

[Twilight222]

Check out “How to Stop Time”. Fucking love it. Great synopsis of what the experience REALLY is. With modern day truth -(RESPECT to Burroughs but hard to relate to both his use and cure choices due to antiquity)) -both bad and good -with no exaggeration and drama. Page-turner relatable, rad read.

 

[muie]

Do yourself a favor and read Dope Fiend by Donald Goines, not only a good heroin book but also most probably the first & only African American author that you've read.

 

[average extreme]

"Short treatise on the joys of morphinism", by Hans Fallada. It's an autobiographic report that depicts life as an addict in Berlin in the 1920s. I read it in german so i don't know about the translation but it is rather short so it.won't hurt If you give it a try. The original title is "Sachlicher Bericht über das Glück ein Morphinist zu sein".