Leaving Dirty Jersey: A Crystal Meth Memoir - Softcover

Salant, James

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0091920345 ISBN 13: 9780091920340

Publisher: Ebury Press, 2008

Synopsis

Leaving Dirty Jersey is the compellingly crafted tale of James Salant's descent into crystal meth addiction. Written at the age of only twenty-two, this memoir chronicles his year-long addiction with complete honesty and heartbreaking candour.

Brought up in a stable, middle-class family, the second son of two therapists, he was introduced to heroin at seventeen by his brother Joe. This resulted in a spell in rehab where he met a bunch of ex-convicts, and he soon fell into the thuggish, drifting lifestyle of meth addiction. It was to take a near-psychotic event to finally get him to clean up.

With graphic descriptions of life on crystal meth - the insatiable sex drive, the paranoia, the desperate need for more drugs to sustain the high - James' writing mimics the emotional detachment of the drug and the wired yet aimless life it induces. His voice is so open and authentic, it is hard to believe he is still so young.

Given the nickname Dirty Jersey, while living as a tough guy-junkie in California, James had it tattooed on the inside of his left arm. There it remains as a graphic and permanent reminder of his past life as a junkie.

About this title

Review:

"If prose were a mind-altering substance, James Salant would be your neighbourhood pusher. Lord knows, the man will make an addict of you" (Koren Zailckas, author of SMASHED: GROWING UP A DRUNK GIRL)

"Normally I hate to tell anyone what to do, or what to think, or read. But I honestly believe every parent should read this book. And every teenager on the verge of a drug trip should read it. And everyone else, too. It's that good, that important" (Dava Sobel, author of LONGITUDE)

"Leaving Dirty Jersey is a harrowing, pitiful account of one guy's demise into full scale addiction and insanity ... Up there with Jim Carroll's The Basketball Diaries for drug rites of passage books" (Blowback Magazine)

"Like watching a car crash, the gruesome details - drug deals gone wrong, violence and seedy motels - make the book compulsive reading" (Big Issue)

"Completely addictive ... brilliant" (Word Magazine)

From the Publisher:

The extraordinary true story of a young man's descent into crystal meth addiction and his struggle to get clean

About this edition

• Publisher: Ebury Press
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0091920345
• ISBN 13: 9780091920340
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 352