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Portrait Of An Addict As A Young Man by Bill Clegg PDF



This is the story of one of the most gifted, charismatic and successful young literary agents in New York and his catastrophic fall into full blown crack addiction, a collapse that would cost him his business, his home, many of his friends, and very nearly, his life. Through a narrative of extraordinary frankness, we are led through the grimiest backrooms of Manhattan's underbelly, through scenes of blank eyed sex and squalor, into the febrile paranoia of a mind gone out of control. The story is intercut with terrifying flashbacks to his childhood, where a secret physical condition triggers shame, psychological abuse, and the beginnings of his hidden life and addictive personality.



This is not a book about a literary agent, or publishing, or New York, nor is it a book about recovery and redemption, it is an account of how a dynamic young middle class professional can find himself finally exposed as a helpless addict, de-railed and alone, living for months on a steady diet of crack cocaine and vodka.



Written with great literary skill and originality, this is a memoir of disarming honesty and huge emotional power, but it is also, at its heart, a manifest of pure terror.



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