Can you have a tangent before you even start the story? I'm going to try. Totally unrelated to the rest of this is the fact that yesterday I wore shoes when I went outside. I know you are supposed to wear shoes. But listen. I wore shoes not boots. And not just any old shoes-- my maryjanes. So there, Winter!
Anyway, the only real connection here is that I bet Nic Sheff wears shoes, and at one point in the book he can't find one of his shoes, so there is the tenuous relationship for you.
Back in January, I read David Sheff's Beautiful Boy and you may recall my freaking out about kids and drug use. Well, last week I read his son Nic's account of his drug use in his book Tweak. His book was not as well written. The beginning felt rushed and, as I think is the case with a lot of young addicts, he comes off as very self-involved* and pretentious. But I was willing to look past all that to experience a bit of a rarity. It is not often that we are given the opportunity to hear both sides of a particular story through two memoirs. I also admit to loving a sordid story, so I was not about to pass this one up-- I just needed a little distance.
As I said, I read the father's version first, which I think was preferable because it gave me the chance to fill in the blanks later of what Nic was doing between those eagerly anticipated/dreaded phone calls to his dad. And I have to say that it must have been really hard for his father to read his son's story. His dad spent so much time worrying that he would get a call that his son was dead, but, in my opinion, what was really happening was far worse. I am not necessarily saying that I would rather my child were dead than a drug addict, but I would almost rather that than find out that he was prostituting himself for drug money, stealing from loved ones and having to dig stool pellets out of his body with his fingers because he had degraded himself so much.
Let us hope this does not happen in my house.
*Yes, I am aware this is a memoir I'm talking about.
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