Customer Reviews

The Story of Junk: A Novel

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

In this promising first novel, Linda Yablonsky paints a humorous, off-beat picture of New York's elite drug culture in the 1980s. The narrator/protagonist is adrift in a world in which who you hang out with matters more than how much money you make. A would-be writer, she's an aimless thirty year old druggie who works as cook in a chic downtown restaurant. Her natural hipness makes her a favorite of the "in" crowd and gradually she's drawn to the glamour of an aristocracy which, as a middle class Jewish girl from the burbs, doesn't reflect what is familiar to her. Adopting the vices of the elite, she finds a role she can cop--drug dealer to artists, models and entrepreneurs. Spurred on by her reckless girlfriend, a marvelous rockster named "Kit" whose helpless charm and deviant life style are brought vividly to life by Yablonsky, she is soon buying and selling heroin for them. An endless stream of people herd in and out of their apartment, and she observes everything that goes down with the deadpan humor of a cynic and the naive detachment of someone who has nothing to lose. Her anxiety increases as she places herself further and further at risk, betraying the tough veneer she presents to the world. Surprisingly, when she gets busted her life calms down--the crisis enables her to acknowlege a number of issues she's been avoiding since her arrival in New York: her total lack of identity and her desire to become a writer. At this juncture, Yablonsky attempts to take on bigger issues to do with drug addiction and destructive behavior and,in my opinion, she takes a wrong turn. She struggles to link the character's pathology with the history of the Holocaust and her heritage as a descendant of survivors, for example. It doesn't come across and a strict editor would have told Yablonsky not to go there.
At the end of the story, she is stunned and confused, but has managed to change the imprisoning architecture of her life--no small feat for a human being, and a huge task for a novel to make both authentic and interesting. It's enough in a first novel (and an autobiographical work) to describe the transformation the character goes through and acknowledge the issues raised as a result of the character's experience. Neither Yablonsky nor her narrator need to know all the answers, but one of them should ask the right questions--and then leave it at that. Since the book is based on personal experience, it's possible Yablonsky rushed it to completion--who can afford to wait a decade or two to digest life's experience?
The author's eye for detail and ironic sense of pathos make for a tale which is both exotic and urbane. Despite her immersion in a chaotic, intense world, there's a soundness to the narrator's voice which inspires trust in the reader. As an outsider, she's adopted a New Yorker's consistently sarcastic, humorous attitude but, in contrast, has an underlying helplessness and sincerity which suggests she is more of a human being than she likes to admit. I liked her character a lot and look forward to more novels by Yablonsky in the future--a second is long overdue!

This book chronicles the "life cycle" of the junkie, in which one goes from the "heroin honeymoon" period, to the ultimate devastation. It rates right up there among my favorite junkie novels, after Permanent Midnight, and Trainspotting. I'm an ex-heroin addict, and while I never was a dealer, made deals with the DEA, or suggled drugs in from the Golden Triangle, as the protagonist in this book does, Yablonsky's narrative rings very true.

Linda Yablonsky brought me intoa world i have always wonderd about. I savored it page by page, and i want more. I hope there is more to this than what i have read. I thank you Linda..

I am not exactly a stranger to the life Linda Yablonsky describes in "The Story of Junk," and I must say that this simplistic, dispassionate little tale of NYC junkies does no justice to the complex, often highly sensitive and intelligent heroin users I have known. Anyone who picks up this book hoping to gain some insight into why people use heroin will be deeply disappointed. "The Story of junk" doesn't even do an adequate job describing the effects of heroin; at times the drug used by the lead character sounds much more like cocaine or speed than heroin (for a far superior book on heroin addiction check out Danny Sugarman's "Wonderland Avenue").

Yablonsky, who claims to be a former heroin addict and dealer herself, has created an oddly detached and indifferent protagonist/narrator. What motivates this 30+ year old character to do what she does is anyone's guess. She does not appear to care much about anything or anyone (that includ! es her girlfriend) which makes it difficult for the reader to care much about her. In fact, for a junkie, she cares remarkably little even about heroin. Unlike her musician girlfriend who has some real mental problems and might even come across as halfway sympathetic if only we knew a little more about her, the lead character does not seem particularly troubled and no real attempts are made to explain her drug addiction and her predilection for heroin. Heroin tends to appeal to people who feel and care too much and use the drug to create a "buffer" between themselves and the rest of the world. A number of heroin addicts I've known suffered from acute manic depression that would not respond to lithium; heroin helped keep psychosis at bay, stabilized their moods to a degree, and even enabled some of them to lead relatively "normal" and productive lives. Obviously none of this applies in the case of Yablonsky's protagonist. One gets the idea that she us! es the drug for no reason other than that her friends do. ! Are there individuals who start messing around with a drug like heroin simply because the people they hang with think it's a cool thing to do? Sure there are; they just don't make for the most interesting and compelling stories.

Yablonsky does have her moments. Her descriptions of downtown Manhattan's people and places are dead-on. Parts of her dialogue show promise as well.

She is at her worst when she attemps to analyze America's "drug problem" and drug policies. Critical thought is not her strength. She lacks both the intellect and the courage to challenge the conventional "wisdom" about illegal drugs and the people who use them. Not only has she clearly not done her research, but anything that goes beyond 12-step mantras and mainstream stereotypes of drug use is simply over her head. Ultimately, she has written an extremely simplistic book about a highly complex subject.

If you've ever wanted an honest account of the drug underworld, this is it. Drug trafficing, selling, and using in New York City in the early 80's as seen through sarcastic eyes; I felt I was transporte and couldn't put it down. Real people, real lives, it will shock you to see bits of yourself in each character. The human conncetion is always there, making one question the public disgust for addicts and truly begin to see them as no different as ourselves.

I wasn't expecting to be impressed by the so-already-told story of a junky in the 80's, thus it struck me fully by surprise when I found myself so immersed into Yablonsky's words that life around me seemed to pause during the mere two days it took me to finish it. She succeds at getting the reader in the skin of every one of her characters.

I recommend this novel -- it's very interesting. I know people who are caught up in drugs and are not evil people. For some, it's not about "just say no" or "just walk away" - and the author makes that clear. This book made me realize that junkies can and want to see the light at the end of the tunnel but find it so hard to get there. Or sometimes can't get there, not yet. I was very interested to find out what was going to happen to these folks and I laughed but I also felt very sad for them. At first, drugs do make you feel good, no doubt, and the writer is honest about this. Using drugs is fun at first - a lot of fun. But then you go down, and you stay down for a long, long time (physcially, mentally, financially, etc.) This book told a story that a lot of people will find hard to understand. I thought Linda Yablonsky did a great job at telling a true story. Buy it, you won't regret it.

i picked this book up at a thrift store after passing it over several times. i saw the rating it had on here (amazon.com) so i decided it would be worth a shot. i was right!

this book is fiction, but its really believable as a true story. i had previously read a million little peices by james frey and was terribly disappointed. linda yablonsky's the story of junk was more believable as a memoir than james frey's book. and his was supposed to be one. i enjoyed just about every moment of this book.

i highly recommend this book to everyone... if you can find a place that has it.

The narrator of this book answers the door expecting the mail man but it turns out to be a narc swat team. The DEA agent, a seductive character portrayed very sympathetically, gets her to turn informer and trade her supplier for her freedom. The opening scene is harrowing and authentic. The rest of the book describes long involvement selling and searching for junk culminating in a pretty good smuggler's yarn about a trip to Bangkok returning with anally stored smack. Narrator still seems like a junky, untrustworthy, unselfaware, no affect, no conscience, no commitment even to her rocker girlfriend who is presented as a nutcase anyway--they've probably broken up by now. Book is all retrospect but lacks hindsight: for instance, while dealing, she rationalized it by calling it "taking care" of her customers, rather than destroying them (and herself)--she should have gone to medical school. Question what her deal with DEA was is never answered so you end the book feeling like you've been hustled, another junky routine, snookered into reading several hundred pages by someone who would fink on her friends so she doesn't have to do time in the big house, understandable while strung out and dealing but we want to know just how many people she had to sell out and what kind of probation she got and whether she's on the vice squad now. Big disappointment, a hole in a well-written and fairly evocative book about a scene that seems completely yesterday in spite of how recent it was. She write good prose. Could be good Billy Friedkin movie, but on second thought French Connection I and II are more rewarding. Author photo by Nan Goldin so she's still cool.

I disagree with the reviewers who found this novel stunning, exquisitely written, brutal, and caring. It's true that the author is nonjudgmental, but I'm going with the reviewer who called it minimally effecting -- I didn't even bother to finish it