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How to Stop Time: Heroin from A to Z
by
Ann Marlowe
How to Stop Time is an important contemporary contribution to the classic accounts of the seductive attractions and dangerous distractions of drug use.
In this hypnotic and piercingly intelligent chronicle, Ann Marlowe dissects her former heroin habit, and recounts in harrowing detail the rigors and realities of life under the influence while building a successful Wall Stre...more
In this hypnotic and piercingly intelligent chronicle, Ann Marlowe dissects her former heroin habit, and recounts in harrowing detail the rigors and realities of life under the influence while building a successful Wall Stre...more
Paperback, 312 pages
Published
November 7th 2000
by Anchor
(first published 1905)
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Ann Marlowe’s formidably intelligent memoir finds its structure in the drug’s various and surprising lessons. “There are a million things you can learn from [doing dope],” she writes, “but they are only fully available to you once you stop using it.” While Marlowe seeks to debunk heroin’s glamour (“the drug isn’t really that great”), she argues convincingly that opiates freed her mind for artistic effort, shaking loose just enough of the relentless logic she acquired in her studies at Harvard Co...more
I disliked the format of breaking up the prose by letters of the alphabet, but the book succeeded despite that. I wish the editor had realized that it didn't need a gimmick.
Wholly unromantic, this book dramatizes neither the gritty reality of heroin use, nor its superb bliss. Instead, it's an aching, thoughtful memoir of a young life, a life which includes a heroin habit. The book's setting - in 1990s New York City - is integral to the story, and its resolution. Marlowe's story is as much about...more
Wholly unromantic, this book dramatizes neither the gritty reality of heroin use, nor its superb bliss. Instead, it's an aching, thoughtful memoir of a young life, a life which includes a heroin habit. The book's setting - in 1990s New York City - is integral to the story, and its resolution. Marlowe's story is as much about...more
This is like a memoir of a heroin
user who never really hit rock bottom. At her worst heroin is an everyday, expensive, day
planning routine. She goes to buy it and uses a lot, but
sounds more like a severe pot head in terms of functioning and the way she socialized.
Maybe a typical heroin user story but that isn't the kind we usually hear about. I liked
how she didn't write about stealing from her family, abuse, prostitution, or any of those
terrible lives I usually associate with drug memoirs....more
user who never really hit rock bottom. At her worst heroin is an everyday, expensive, day
planning routine. She goes to buy it and uses a lot, but
sounds more like a severe pot head in terms of functioning and the way she socialized.
Maybe a typical heroin user story but that isn't the kind we usually hear about. I liked
how she didn't write about stealing from her family, abuse, prostitution, or any of those
terrible lives I usually associate with drug memoirs....more
A very un-shrill, unsensational look at heroin and addiction (which of course makes a lot of people very upset.) There is a healthy dose of skepticism and distance but also a sense of nostalgia and tenderness toward the "scene" and the time. The format itself is a joke referring to the author's strained relationship with "alphabetical order" (totally arbitrary despite the appearance of order) and also yet another attempt to "stop time" in that it overrides chronological order, becoming a stream-...more
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I first read this book in high school--I bought it at St. Mark's Bookshop during a Thanksgiving in New York with my parents during which we had the traditional meal at a diner in Hell's Kitchen populated on that day only by cab drivers. I had, I think, blintzes. Anyway, the genre of drug memoir is a strict one, very prescriptive in terms of how repentant the addict should be, how low rock bottom ought to be, and how glowingly self-righteous the emerged new soul will sound in the retelling. Ann M...more
Apr 01, 2012
Katheter, all the world's a.
rated it
1 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
trypanophobics, investment bankers, creative nonfiction professors in need of a How Not to Write
Shelves:
drugs
Summarily declared it 'The Worst Book I've Ever Read.' Over a week has passed, and I maintain my bold assertion. If you want somebody to serve up 90s NYC Jewish Junkie Realness (though fictive instead of 'creative' nonfictive), please, please read Like Being Killed by Ellen Miller instead--that book is a revelation to be reviewed once I am able to process its splendor. I've only just begun writing reviews for this site yesterday, and it seems I prefer to tear books a new one instead of praising...more
Some interesting writing on the subject of heroin use, by a woman who kicked her habit before it ruined her life. Also one of the first books I've read by a female author in quite some time (the last one was "Geek Love", a couple of years ago). A fairly brisk read, but still a bit of a chore to get through by the end - mostly because I wasn't really in the right frame of mind to enjoy an addiction memoir. One specific complaint: if the author wanted to arrange her story into alphabetical section...more
Aug 22, 2011
Kimberly
rated it
1 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
no one
Recommended to Kimberly by:
Amazon lol
Shelves:
sociology
hated, hated, and hated- author was totally unlikable- not that an author has to be likable but you can like unlikable authors- but nothing about this book/author is likable. She claims she was addicted yet never experienced withdrawal or the pains of addiction- then you weren't addicted-not in the physical sense-not in any sense- it is called a casual user- yes heroin addicts can be casual users. The book was slow and boring, the author comes off as pretentious and you just can't warm up to her...more
Coming from a recovering heroin addict, I could relate to this book, as what I liked about the book is that it showed how Heroin Addiction can affect even the upper class, the intelligent studious individuals. It broke down the stereotype, and Ann made it easy for those who weren't addicts, to understand what a downward spiral this addiction is,and how it differs from others. Many people could read this and take it seriously unlike "SMACK" which was the typical, "Junkie" read, in my opinion.
CLAPTRAP! I hated this book! This woman's "drug experience" is unique and it angers me that the author thinks she can speak for everyone else who has used drugs. She's an upper middle class snobby asshole who thinks far too much of herself. This book was excruciating to read. I already said most of what I had to say in the progress notes. It would have been a better use of my time, and more fun, to burn this book instead of reading it. What a crock of self-satisfied, inaccurate crap!
Al principio me resultó difícil adentrarme en este libro, me parece que esto fue a causa de la manera particular en que está escrito que hace difícil llevar un orden al principio, pero después, conforme uno llega a conocer mejor la historia de Ann Marlowe es posible identificarse con ella, sentir lo que está plasmando, relacionarse con un profundo grado de humanidad. Lo que aquí se describe no la devastadora historia de una decadencia sino simplemente la experiencia vivida por un ser humano. Est...more
This fearless memoir is going to turn everything you thought about heroin addicts on its head. It's the most honest tale chronicling both the good and bad of being heavily involved in a drug that I've ever read, and also weaves in Marlowe's struggle with her family and other relationship issues - personal challenges that underlie everyone's story, whether they choose to use drugs as a coping mechanism or not.
I never thought excerpts about one person's heroin's use could be so insightful. She isn't the junkie girl next door, and yet, she is. I really enjoyed the A to Z format that she employed. This powerful literary device lended itself well to surfing through time and underscoring themes both from a drug user's point of view and a person with love's and losses.
This is a smart book from a smart author. The perspective on false perceptions of heroin use is unique to say the least. I can't believe this has flown under the radar for a wider audience than simply Village Voice readers for nearly 14 years.
I found the alphabetical listings to be a fascinating way to tell a story. I disliked the author very much and I found her to be a complete snob, but I can't deny the book 4 stars.
One of the new classics of the well-established genre of addiction memoir. Striking, stunning, and -- despite the dictionary conceit -- tells a memorable, linear story.
Incisive, brilliantly constructed, and fascinating.
Very intense and difficult to read, but worth it
A good read
a
anthony
he called me out on my all too generous rating.
b
book
this book now gets one star instead of four.
c
crack
because I must have been smoking rocks when I gave this book four stars. Oh yeah, I'm in graduate school and I smoke crack. I'm pretty fucking awesome, aren't I?
anthony
he called me out on my all too generous rating.
b
book
this book now gets one star instead of four.
c
crack
because I must have been smoking rocks when I gave this book four stars. Oh yeah, I'm in graduate school and I smoke crack. I'm pretty fucking awesome, aren't I?
1 like
·
like
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I am giving this book three stars because I liked the ending very much and because Marlowe *can* be an engaging, inventive storyteller. However, the book also very much frustrated me. It's obviously pretty focused and its the subject that kinda turned me off. I always feel like these books should be shorter so you can bear them better.
The best "addiction memoir" that I've ever read. Stylistically amazing, and shows how an unusual style can work with the material, rather than seem like a gimmick (David Shields, are you listening?) I have read this several times, and gotten more out of it each time.
'Get to know someone who has survived addiction. It will change your perspective on pretty much everything.'
reading a book is not exactly like knowing someone in person, but a book still could make you think again
reading a book is not exactly like knowing someone in person, but a book still could make you think again
An overview of heroin addiction from the perspective of an upper class white woman. The alphabetic format is inventive and makes the book stand out from others in the recovery memoir genre.
I liked this book for its general insights, not as much for the author's astoundingly high opinion of herself.
Sep 22, 2010
Michael Thomas Angelo
added it
I live on Chiva Row aka Pill Hill. I was a speed freak until I moved here. Now I appreciate the lure of tar.
It taught me a lot about heroin, but was a bit self-indulgent and lacking in narrative, even for a memoir.
I tried to stop cold turkey but let's face it, cold turkey legs are delicious.
Interesting execution; annoying protagonist.
A- Very interesting
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“Heroin is a stand-in, a stop-gap, a mask, for what we believe is missing. Like the "objects" seen by Plato's man in a cave, dope is the shadow cast by cultural movements we can't see directly.”
—
1 person liked it
“Addiction is a bargain with the cosmos: only stay time, and I'll remain in this holding pattern, too. The uncrossable gap between now and the past is given tangible form and conquered, daily, in the real but bridgeable gap between what I need and what I can get. Addiction creates a god so that time will stop--why all gods are created. God might be another story.”
—
1 person liked it
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