BLOG TOUR for WHITE OUT

TITLE:           White Out
AUTHOR:       Michael W. Clune
GENRE:         Memoir
RATING:    

As most of my blog readers will attest, I have read my share of addiction memoirs as this is a subject that has been and continues to be very close to my heart.  This is why, I was quite excited to read White Out The Secret Life of Heroin.

Firstly, drug addiction scares me – actually, all addictions scare the hell out of me, but, for some reason, addiction to heroin has always seem particularly cruel and what touched me most about this memoir was that I really hurt for Clune. 

While it is very true that this memoir is incredibly hard to read and, in fact, I found myself having to put the book down on several occasions just to take a breath – it is also true that Clune does not shy away from the dark, gritty truth that was his world

I found myself cringing so many times and while I would love to say that I found the whole story inspiring, I admit that, most of the times, I found it incredibly hard, dark and scary – very scary.

At the same time, you could see glimpses of Clune – despite the horrific world that he lived in – definitely.

Still, Clune peppers his memoir with little nuggets that each and every addict (in recovery or not) can definitely identify with – I could especially relate when he describes how his memory would ‘conveniently’ forget all the bad his drug of choice caused him –  making it feel as though he was always doing it for the first time.  This is obviously a paraphrase and the author says it much better, but  these are the types of observations that are spot on and, in the end, make this a very compelling book to read.