Taking the Flack
March 30, 2008Tania Glyde, author of Cleaning Up: How I Gave Up Drinking and Lived (Serpent’s Tail, 2008), has some interesting commentary on how her book has been received. In line with Ann Marlowe’s comments on the need “to outwit the drug: to introduce [into the narrative] what the drug will not: surprise” [1], Glyde discusses the competitiveness of writing about drugs:
There is urge to sneer if you haven’t done them, and the urge to impose your own experience if you have. [2]
She also reports her feeling on negative comments from some other recovering alcoholics for her non-AA stance [3] and hints that the “increasingly hysterical” misery memoir bubble may soon burst [4]
This idea of addiction, or addiction narratives, as competitive sport is insightful and interesting … though quite depressing in what it reveals about human nature. And very interesting to read one memoir author’s views.
Refs
[1] Ann Marlowe. How to Stop Time: Heroin from A to Z. Virago, 1999: 141-142.
[2] Tania Glyde. ‘New Statesman Review: Are Some Reviewers Actually Aliens?’ 28 February 2008.
[3] Tania Glyde. ‘God Bless the Web-Commenting Public! Sort of’ 30 March 2008.
[4] Tania Glyde. ‘Twice in Private Eye‘ 11 February 2008.
