Portrait of an Addict as a Young Man

Reviews / Votes

Beautifully measured and adroitly paced ... mixing a matter-of-fact eye for detail with just enough emotion to unsettle and engross ... Addictive and masterful -- Julian Hall * The Independent * A gripping, graphic memoir that pounds relentlessly to its climax * The Times * It has the power and precision of the best contemporary fiction. It does what the best writing always does, which is to make Clegg's experience part of your own -- Andrew O'Hagan It's a remarkable achievement when a writer can evoke the most desperate episodes of addiction with the unflinching honesty required to make such a memoir worth reading, yet somehow manage to completely transcend sleaze, sordidness and vapid self-justification. Bill Clegg's story of a man - largely locked in hotel rooms, engaged in a desperate, heart-wrenching battle with himself - is destined to become a cult classic of writing on drug addiction -- Irvine Welsh Beautifully written and elegantly frank... lyrical, funny and shattering -- A.L.Kennedy Bill Clegg's Portrait of an Addict as a Young Man stands up to Frederick Exley's great memoir of alcoholism, A Fan's Notes. It is perhaps even higher praise to think of Portrait of an Addict as a Young Man as Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye on crack. But really, finally, forget the comparisons. Read the book -- Michael Cunningham, author of The Hours Addictive, and strangely beautiful -- Maggie Fergusson * Intelligent Life * A gripping, graphic memoir that pounds relentlessly to a climax. -- Tim Teeman * The Times * Riveting reading... We salute this book * Dazed & Confused * Dark, engrossing...proves that addiction stories do not have to be gratuitous and unashamedly confessional -- Fiona Atherton * Scotsman *