Will

A drug-addled youth dissipates itself in this vivid if flawed memoir. English novelist Self (Great Apes) revisits his life from 1979 to 1986, a period dominated by his use of marijuana, acid, amphetamines, cocaine, and much heroin. Written in the third person, these vignettes include his first snort of heroin at age 17; an episode of heroin withdrawal in New Delhi that juxtaposed uncontrollable nausea and diarrhea with hearing a Christian passion play next door; getting punched back into consciousness by a woman after an overdose; an excessiveness of drug-taking at Oxford, culminating in a narcotics bust that ended his chance at graduate school; and a stint in rehab that felt like a totalitarian 12-step cult. Along the way Self offers jaundiced, sardonic recollections of his parents’ marriage, casual hookups, meaningless jobs, and soulless suburbs. Self writes in his usual dazzling, impressionistic whirl studded with piquant character sketches and travelogue. Unfortunately, his literary firepower can’t overcome the fact that drugs are pretty boring unless one is on them. (He and two friends “lay back, massaging their aching biceps as the methadone flowed thickly between their three minds, emulsifying them into a single sticky puddle of semi-being... splurged across the scrofulous carpet, staring blankly at the fly-blown heavens.”) The result is an amped-up but often tedious and uninvolving confessional that loses itself in callow sensation. (Jan.)