Smack [Hardcover]

Melvin Burgess (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 15, 1998

Winner of the Carnegie Medal and the Guardian Prize for fiction, two of England's most prestigious awards, Smack tells a penetrating story about heroin use, a topic that is becoming familiar in the news and one of importance to teens everywhere.

The story begins with Tar, a fourteen-year-old, who runs away from home. He convinces his girlfriend, Gemma, to come with him, and it is not long before they are engulfed in a loose community of people living in abandoned buildings. Everything seems to be turning out so well: they have a roof over their heads, food to eat, and a brand-new group of friends. And when Tar and Gemma try their first hit of smack, they think life will keep on getting better.

But before long, they find they've lost control. The search for the next hit becomes all-consuming--until a disaster forces Gemma to take matters into her own hands.

Insightful, haunting, and real, Smack is the Go Ask Alice of the '90s. It's a book that every teenager should read--then pass along to a friend.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Like so many teenagers, Tar and Gemma are fed up with their parents. Tar's family is alcoholic and abusive, and Gemma feels her home life is cramped by too many restrictions. The young, British couple runs away to Bristol in search of freedom, and finds it in the form of a "squat." This vacant building is also occupied by two slightly older teens who share everything with Tar and Gemma (including their heroin habits). For a while, everything is parties and adventures, but slowly Tar and Gemma find themselves growing more and more dependent on the drug--whose strict mandates are even less forgiving than those of the parents they fled. As Gemma says, "You take more and more, and more often. Then you get sick of it and give up for a few days. And that's the really nasty thing because then, when you're clean, that's when it works so well."

With Smack, winner of the Carnegie Medal and the Guardian Prize for Fiction, Melvin Burgess brilliantly sketches a gradual descent into drug addiction. There is no preaching here, just the artful revelation of cold, hard facts. Burgess's use of the first-person voice--for not only the main characters but those in the background as well--brings you into the mind of every character in this homeless, hooked culture, offering a (sometimes terrible) glimpse of the motivations and transitions of each person. (Tar's personality changes dramatically over the course of the book, from sweet-natured, lonely boy to hard-edged, hit-seeking addict.) More subtle and less graphic than Beauty Queen, Linda Glovach's tale of a girl's downward spiral into heroin addiction, Smack will linger in the your mind long after its haunting conclusion has been reached. (Ages 13 and older) --Brangien Davis

From Publishers Weekly

This searing account of two young runaways' descent into heroin addiction and their faltering climb back out won England's Carnegie Medal and Guardian Prize for Fiction. Burgess's (Burning Issy) unflinching depiction of the seductive pleasures as well as insidious horrors of heroin will likely provoke controversy and heated discussion: some adults may feel that YA readers shouldn't be exposed to such unvarnished reality; others will recognize it as strong preventive medicine. Both would be conceding the power of the story in these pages. Self-absorbed Gemma, 14, bored with small-town life and her parents' strict rules, runs away to Bristol to join ingenuous, artistic Tar, who is fleeing an abusive home. They find lodging with some older youths in a squat until Gemma, and later Tar, moves in with her newfound "soul sister" Lily and boyfriend Rob, who introduce them to heroin. Though constantly insisting that they can quit any time, all become junkies, with the girls turning to prostitution and the boys to drug dealing, until Gemma makes a desperate bid for salvation. In telling the story through some 10 different voices, Burgess may well dazzle readers with the novel's flawless construction and his insights into character and relationshipsAmost notably Tar's metamorphosis from loving, gentle na?f into a copy of his violent, self-deceiving father. This is one novel that will leave an indelible impression on all who read it. Ages 14-up.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 14 and up
  
• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. (BYR) (May 15, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 080505801X
• ISBN-13: 978-0805058017
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.8 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (219 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #644,779 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

43 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Compelling and Scary Downward Spiral, October 10, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Smack (Paperback)

This is the story Tar and Gemma, two teenagers, who run away from their families in search of freedom and end up in a prison of their own creation -- drug addiction. This is a truly compelling book and I felt myself swept along in total sympathy with the main characters. At first it's all fun and games until they realize that you can't run away from certain basic human needs: the need for a home (which becomes a squat), the need for family (which becomes a group of squatters, who sadly are also junkies). It's only a matter of time before the lure of drugs (as a bonding ritual) takes over -- and then we watch these characters spiral downward. I read this book right after another Amazon purchase -- The Losers' Club by Richard Perez -- and while that novel isn't about drug addiction, but a 'failed,' lonely writer addicted to the personal ads, I was reminded of the need we all have to belong, to feel ALIVE. The story of Smack reminds us that we can never escape from ourselves, from certain innate human needs. And when we try to break away from the more traditional ways of life, those needs, that loneliness to belong is still there. I truly love this book and would recommend it to anyone. It's beautifully written and compelling. And sadly true.

32 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Compelling and Scary Downward Spiral, October 1, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Smack (Paperback)

This is the story Tar and Gemma, two teenagers, who run away from their families in search of freedom and end up in a prison of their own creation -- drug addiction.

This is a truly compelling book and I felt myself swept along in total sympathy with the main characters. At first it's all fun and games until they realize that you can't run away from certain basic human needs: the need for a home (which becomes a squat), the need for family (which becomes a group of squatters, who sadly are also junkies). It's only a matter of time before the lure of drugs (as a bonding ritual) takes over -- and then we watch these characters spiral downward.

I read this book right after another Amazon purchase -- The Losers' Club by Richard Perez -- and while that novel isn't about drug addiction, but a "failed," lonely writer addicted to the personal ads, I was reminded of the need we all have to belong, to feel ALIVE. The story of Smack reminds us that we can never escape from ourselves, from certain innate human needs. And when we try to break away from the more traditional ways of life, those needs, that loneliness to belong is still there. I truly love this book and would recommend it to anyone. It's beautifully written and compelling. And sadly true.

31 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Hard to take, but very worth it, December 12, 2000

By 

Edward Aycock (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Smack (Paperback)

I read this book this past year in my class, "Materials for Young Adults." I was shocked, not at the lurid subject matter and grittiness, but at how well written it was and how much I really enjoyed it. People may have objections to the sex and to the drug use, (and the girl with the see through dress), but at its heart, this book in NO way glamorizes drug use. Must we put a moral thermometer on everything? This is just a book about two young kids who run away from home and get caught up in the English world of squatters and heroin. I like how this book shows that not all squatters are a bunch of junkies. In fact, many of the squatters try and stop our "heroes" from getting involved with the wrong crowd. The squatters form a type of family, and drugs tear them apart in the end.

There has been a lot of controversy about this book, and whether or not it has a place in the classroom. (Some of this has been around whether a child should just READ this book on their own time.) I say the more who read it, the better. This book is much more than a cautionary tale; it's a darn good read in and of itself. And yes, it is perfectly well suited for adults as well.