Portrait of an Addict as a Young Man by Bill Clegg

Portrait of an Addict as a Young Man by Bill Clegg

This is the story of one of the most gifted, charismatic and successful young literary agents in New York and his catastrophic fall into full-blown crack addiction: a collapse that would cost him his business, his home, many of his friends and - very nearly - his life.

It's a remarkable achievement when a writer can evoke the most desperate episodes of addiction with the unflinching honesty required to make such a memoir worth reading, yet somehow manage to completely transcend sleaze, sordidness and vapid self-justificationBill Clegg's story of a man - largely locked in hotel rooms, engaged in a desperate, heart-wrenching battle with himself - is destined to become a cult classic of writing on drug addiction.

-- Irvine Welsh
Bill Clegg's Portrait of an Addict as a Young Man stands up to Frederick Exley's great memoir of alcoholism, A Fan's Notes. It is perhaps even higher praise to think of Portrait of an Addict as a Young Man as Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye on crack. But really, finally, forget the comparisons. Read the book. -- Michael Cunningham, author of The Hours
A Portrait of an Addict as a Young Man is an instant classic. Anybody who knows anything about addiction will feel morally altered by this book. To an extraordinary degree, it has both beauty and truth. It goes beyond its own revelations to become a book for everybody, a work of art. I suppose we live for the magic of these things. -- Andrew O'Hagan

Bill Clegg has been an agent with William Morris in New York since 2006. This is his first book.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780224089074
ISBN 10	0224089072
Title	Portrait of an Addict as a Young Man
Author	Bill Clegg
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Vintage Publishing
Year published	2010-06-10
Number of pages	240
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.