Dopefiend
Dopefiend
by Donald Goines
With heroin back in the news, it's time to re-read Donald Goines' most depressing work, Dopefiend. The tale of a sweet young thing who devolves into a, wait for it, dopefiend, the book is more a catalog of hell than a novel. How bad is heroin addiction? Is forced coitus with a dog bad enough? No? Well, wait until you get to the part with the dead (censored) falling out from its (censored)(censored) while our heroine slips in the (censored) below. Now, that is bad.
Donald Goines, along with Iceberg Slim, rose up from the ghetto to tell these hardboiled tales. Goines was murdered at his typewriter at the age of 37, still fighting his own heroin addiction.
Discussion Question: Does someone need to be a heroin addict like Goines to truly write about addiction?
by Donald Goines
With heroin back in the news, it's time to re-read Donald Goines' most depressing work, Dopefiend. The tale of a sweet young thing who devolves into a, wait for it, dopefiend, the book is more a catalog of hell than a novel. How bad is heroin addiction? Is forced coitus with a dog bad enough? No? Well, wait until you get to the part with the dead (censored) falling out from its (censored)(censored) while our heroine slips in the (censored) below. Now, that is bad.
Donald Goines, along with Iceberg Slim, rose up from the ghetto to tell these hardboiled tales. Goines was murdered at his typewriter at the age of 37, still fighting his own heroin addiction.
Discussion Question: Does someone need to be a heroin addict like Goines to truly write about addiction?
posted by The Bookhouse Boy at 1:15 PM
1 Comments:
Not necesarily but to get the full experience in a literary sense an addict would probably be best.
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