how to stop time : heroin from A to Z [Hardcover]

Ann Marlowe (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0465031501 | ISBN-13: 978-0465031504 | Publication Date: September 1999 | Edition: 1

”Heroin,” writes Ann Marlowe, ”is a stand-in, a stopgap, 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.”Cultural criticism masquerading as a heroin memoir masquerading as a dictionary, how to stop time looks at American society through the lens of heroin use. Weaving personal history (Marlowe used heroin for eight years) with aphorisms and analysis, Ann Marlowe is unsparing in her exploration of her, and society’s, obsession with heroin addiction. There is no glamorization of ’heroin chic,’ nothing about the irresistible power of the drug, no cliched scenes of degradation and ecstasy. There is much about craving the validation of danger, about suburban childhood, about the loss of a father to Parkinson’s disease, about moving to the East Village, musicians’ parties, being cool, and striving to remake yourself.how to stop time is the first book to examine heroin in relation to our cynical, post-consumer society, and the first to explain the profound nostalgia that powers both addiction and our age. ”That drive to return to the past,” Ann Marlowe writes, ”isn’t an innocent one. It’s about stopping your passage to the future. It is a symptom of the fear of death and the love of predictable experience.” Moral but not pious, this book sheds new light not just on nostalgia but on digital culture, consumerism, and glamour. In the annals of addiction literature it will take its place beside William S. Burroughs’s Junkie, Jim Carroll’s Basketball Diaries, and Thomas De Quincey’s Confessions of an English Opium Eater.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Don't expect to probe the mind of a woman whose life was ruined by heroin, because Ann Marlowe won't take you down that road. Instead, her provocatively structured memoir, How to Stop Time: Heroin from A To Z, follows the life of an upper-class addict who makes no apologies for the pictures she fails to paint.

Marlowe is the antithesis of the junkie stereotype. Throughout her seven-year addiction, she never shot up, never lived on the street, and never resorted to selling drugs or her body to sustain her habit. In short, she never bottomed out. As a result, readers with the preconception that all druggies end up on the dark side may put this book down and ask, "What's interesting about her addiction?" Ironically, it is precisely this absence of severity that makes Marlowe's memoir intriguing. The fact that her own game with heroin ends in a draw gives her an unusual perspective on the friends, lovers, and dealers whose luck ran out and who lost everything.

The memoir's alphabetically arranged entries read more like loosely connected essays than actual chapters, at times giving the book a slightly disjointed feel. She doles out the details of her addiction in bits and pieces, interjecting snippets of her youth, an acute look at the drug "problem" in the United States, and the gradual progression of her habit along the way. She describes her addiction as a method of slowing down time in an effort to impose order on her chaotic life, and a way of becoming vulnerable and daring all in one moment. Declaring it an act of free will, Marlowe speaks of a life with heroin as few have envisioned: one of restraint, consciousness, self-discipline, and very little guilt. --Melissa Asher

From Publishers Weekly

Part memoir, part cultural criticism and part junkie riff, journalist Marlowe's fragmented reflections on her seven years as a heroin addict provide further insight into a world illuminated by such works as Jim Carroll's The Basketball Diaries and William S. Burroughs's Junkie. Marlowe holds her own against these heavyweights with a series of short essays, each categorized alphabetically under such headers as "first time," "narcosis" and "sacrifice." Under the entry "god" she writes: "Addiction creates a god so that time will stopAwhy all gods are created." After a relatively benign and comfortable life growing up in a New Jersey suburb, Marlowe consciously sought out the god of heroin after moving to Manhattan. With a combination of detached observation and painful memory, Marlowe presents an honest and compelling account of what it was like to cruise by a buying spot and have sex while on dope. She also proves to be an excellent cultural commentator, presenting insights into why people start using drugs, how society glamorizes heroin whereas actual users do not and how men and women take drugs differently. By cross-referencing her entries, she allows the reader to skip from one period of her life to another in a shaky chronology of moments of stopped time. This inventive form effectively illustrates the random quality of memory, especially when under the influence of drugs. Marlowe's excellent writing makes her memoir an important and fascinating addition to the literature of addiction. (Nov.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 16 and up
  
• Hardcover: 297 pages
• Publisher: Basic Books; 1 edition (September 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0465031501
• ISBN-13: 978-0465031504
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.9 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (38 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,787,882 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Bizzare, Atypical Diary of a Dope Fiend, December 1, 2003

By 

Lisa Marie "Lisa Marie" (Southern New Jersey, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: How to Stop Time: Heroin from A to Z (Paperback)

I am torn on this book, absolutely torn. Marlowe's writing style is wonderful. She is obviously very intelligent. The problem *I* have here is that what she went through almost doesn't sound real. As in, I am not saying that she made up the fact that she got high. But, as a former heroin addict, I almost think that she either a) is exaggerating how many times she did heroin or b) is lying when she says she hasn't touched it, hasn't even THOUGHT ABOUT IT for years. It just doesn't sound real. And yeah, I know that everyone has a different experience with heroin. But usually not THAT much different. And something that worries me about this book is that it will encourage people to try it. I wish it came with a disclaimer.

All that aside, I do think Marlowe's book is a decent piece of literature. Except for the fact that she rambles about things that are completely uninteresting and that have NOTHING to do with stopping time or doing heroin. And some of these anecdotes are really really really boring. Some of them are the kind of stories your grandmother tells you every time she sees you that weren't interesting or funny or lesson-filled the first time but you are forced to sit there and pretend that they are AND not say you've heard them thirty-seven times before.

Just an opinion though. I'd leaf through it in the bookstore to make sure you'll like it before you buy it.

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A trenchant tale of post-modern life -- not just about drugs, September 21, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: how to stop time : heroin from A to Z (Hardcover)

As a rule, I'm not all that interested in "the literature of addiction," but this book works as memoir, as cultural criticism, as philosophy. Or simply as a story -- of a remarkable woman's struggle with her demons and the demons of post-modern life. The dictionary format (which she seems to have chosen because, like heroin, it "stops time") doesn't keep you from getting wrapped up in the story. On the contrary -- like the similar device in Pavic's Dictionary of the Khazars -- it sets the story in a hall of mirrors, so that the implications stretch endlessly in all directions.

My only worry about the book is that Marlowe may be TOO remarkable -- that her obvious energy and strength of character make her an atypical addict, and throw doubt on her generalizations. But she claims that a lot of the other heroin addicts she knew were like her in many ways, and maybe she's right. Besides, I don't suppose de Quincey or Burroughs or Malcolm Lowry were "typical" addicts, either.

48 of 64 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars I can't believe I bought this book at all, and full price!, November 26, 1999

By 

Alissa Herbert - See all my reviews

This review is from: how to stop time : heroin from A to Z (Hardcover)

Ann Marlowe is no authority on the subject of heroin, and therefore "how to stop time -- heroin from A to Z" is a complete misnomer as a title. It implies that she has some credibility, and can authoritatively dissect and make sense of aspects of heroin use, abuse, and the heroin users. This book could more aptly be called "my little life -- the heroin years -- from A to Z." Marlowe states she was never a fully addicted person, admitting to using up to 2 bags on her using days (she took days off), yet she dares to outright dismantle the claims of those that have truly experienced addiction to its depths. She looks down her "Roman" nose at women who neglect children due to serious drug use, or people who are driven by the need to sate their addiction to commit crimes, because she herself has never had to do so. Maybe this is because she was never an addict. With her credentials, her next book could be on auto repair. Afterall, she did have a car, (most likely for longer than her "heroin habit"). She may have even known a mechanic or two. This would certainly put her in the position to make an equally valuable critical analysis on the subject. A self-proclaimed authority on heroin addiction (where did she get the nerve?), Marlowe vascillates between identifying herself with the "junkie," and distancing herself from them as the pitiful "other." Her book is confusing, and ultimately disappointing. Anything redeeming about it was underdeveloped -- like her avoidance of clearly answering why she used heroin at all (see "cool," "hidden," "fraud" -- oh, that one's not in there.) I am particularly disheartened (read: disgusted) at how she attacks those that have freed themselves from an addiction she cannot even relate to, and then pointedly mocks them on both counts; for being addicted, and for recovering. I was hoping this book would be of some use to me as a researcher of addiction among middle class women, but regrettably, it was more of a disjointed, self-indulgent memoir of a woman who brushed elbows with troubled, talented people, never really revealing herself at all. The title was a real bait and switch. By the end of the book, all I had gleaned was that Ann Marlowe is a Harvard grad, Bergdorf's shopper, name dropper (albeit vague, and what's the point of that?), part time jock, is emotionally frozen, and is a woman who for some totally unclear reason wants to forever align herself in the annals of heroin user history. But she is MUCH BETTER THAN THEY ARE. Thank God for Ann. She infiltrated the ranks of heroin users, and came back to tell us how hideous they were. Just in case you thought heroin addiction was glamorous. I think this is another case of a fashion victim to the "junkie chic." (see "inside cover")