for a friend: i think she means irvine welsh type books?

[Maureen]

i have a friend-in-law who sent me the following email about an a book gift card she received, and how to spend it:

i LOVE drug abuse, slice of dysfunctional life - well anything heavy on DYSFUNCTIONAL is great with me...

do you have any recommendations for books along these lines? i do not really read books about dysfunctional life, and when i do, i usually don't like them. i did not like the corrections, for example. and i'm not sure i've even read one book about drug abuse. :)

i realize that's not very specific, but any help you could provide would be much appreciated.

[Greg]

A great heroin novel is Like Being Killed. It's not still in print so I don't know if that will be much help though.

[karen, future RA queen]

like being killed is amaaaaaaazing. but, yeah, OOP. there is this book, Since You Ask, which is fine. sex and drugs and madness. actually, it might be out of print, too, come to think on it.

Lullabies for Little Criminals is about drugs and dysfunction, and also canada, and is also a first-rate book, unlike a lot of books i have read that are just sensationalist muck.

[Meredith]

So . . . isn't Infinite Jest as this type of book? You guys are the experts, so I defer.

[Greg]

It could fit, but I'm wary about recommending Infinite Jest to anyone. I think someone reading it for drugs and dysfunction could be really annoyed and disappointed by all the other stuff in the book.

[Meredith]

Oh, that's a good point.

[Maureen]

hi greg, karen, and meredith: thanks for your recommendations. i will pass them along -- including infinite jest (noting some reservations). the only books i could think of were ones that became movies, like Requiem for a Dreamor Less Than Zero -- in fact it seems, there's a sequel to that called Imperial Bedrooms. i decided not to go with them, because i've a) never read them, and b)have found that most people don't want to read a novel that's become a movie because they "already know what happens". for myself, i have the opposite experience, quite often i find my favourite authors after reading novels that have become films. :)

anyway, thanks again!

[Meredith]

What about? A Million Little Pieces? I haven't read it, but it's about that, no?

Also, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim has stories from David Sedaris's drug days, if I remember right.

[Meredith]

Oh, and Dharma Bums, but that's more "glory of drugs" than dysfunction.

[Mark]

Stray is a novel with some incredible unique depictions of addiction as well as treatment and recovery .Stray Written by a therapist and recovering addict.

[Blair]

Junk by Melvin Burgess (published in the US as Smack, I believe) is a YA book, but it's also an incredibly powerful story about heroin addiction.

I'm not sure it quite fits the bill (it's not strictly about drug abuse, although drugs are certainly involved and it has a certain hallucinatory quality throughout) but Lights Out in Wonderland by DBC Pierre is a brilliant book, and it's definitely dysfunctional!

[Andrew]

If it's Irvine Welsh type books she's after I would suggest Ten Storey Love Song by Richard Milward:

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55...

Drugs and dysfunction a plenty. He's from North East England and published his first book 'Apple' at 19; very good.

[Jasmine]

I'd recommend Denis Cooper if the person reads less literary stuff and Kosinski, Jerzy if they read more dense stuff. also The Elementary Particles and Adam Thirlwell

these aren't "drug" books they are more just dysfunctional life kind of books. but I think they run along the same lines if she is just looking for dysfunction.

and I happen to really like less than zero personally and I think it really gets to the heart of dysfunction also I want to recommend palahniuk but I can't think which one

[Tuck]

niall griffths' book are all about this topic Stump: A Novel
joe strummer's bio too fits this, you wouldn't BELIEVE the amount of drugs he took (rip joe) Redemption Song: The Ballad of Joe Strummer
and art pepper too was a heroin addict and music genius and he and his wife wrote a GREAT book Straight Life: The Story of Art Pepper
nick cave's novel too has lots of all the above The Death of Bunny Munro