- Paperback: 198 pages
- Publisher: Wrecking Ball Press (18 Jun 2007)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1903110181
- ISBN-13: 978-1903110188
- Product Dimensions: 20.6 x 14.5 x 1.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 780,657 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
if you have any interest in the beautiful darkness of the human spirit this is a book for you. Transcendent and illuminating, O'Neil leads you through the twisted world of the career junkie.
A scuzzy work of extraordinary art. An autofiction, par excellence.
A scuzzy work of extraordinary art. An autofiction, par excellence.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is a must for any fans of novels like The Basketball Diaries, Trainspotting or Junkie. The author details his years as a musician in various mid 90's bands like Kenickie, before the real meat of the book - a relentless nosedive into heroin addiction and crack use in some incredibly scuzzy sounding LA neighborhoods. The writing is simple, very brutal but poetic: the book reminded me more of the classic stuff like Burroughs or Bukowski than more recent memoirs like Jerry Stahl or James Frey. And a barely disguised account of his stint as a member of The Brian Jonestown Massacre is worth the price of admission by itself.
Be warned though - if a blow by blow account of someone injecting crack cooked up in lemon juice, with a used needle sounds too much for you - then avoid Digging the Vein. Otherwise, pick up a copy and change yer life.
Be warned though - if a blow by blow account of someone injecting crack cooked up in lemon juice, with a used needle sounds too much for you - then avoid Digging the Vein. Otherwise, pick up a copy and change yer life.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
11 reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Youth, Blood and Heaven
11 April 2006
Format:Paperback
Yeah, Jesus came back from the dead, but then what did he do? Always easy to talk about hell, but not so with heaven. Digging The Vein sticks out as a tale of addiction that explains why the highs are so worth it. Easy for recovery manuals to talk about why people "fill a void inside them with alcohol or heroin or sex or TV." But why are hard drugs so worth the agony? O'Neill spends a little more time on the highs-you have a youth in LA in a band that is close to making it big. That in itself is a high. When he begins using heroin, one high transforms into another. The descriptions, though quick and witty, are still more concrete than you usually get. The way he describes the highs of various drugs, you finally see why someone would want to go through all the pain in order to have them.
It seems reviewers these days often have to talk about what separates a certain piece from its predecessors-a different kind of serial killer; good girl scholar's double life; and my favorite, werewolf/ vampire/ wizard/ demon meets gumshoe detective. Hey man, whatever pays the bills. So I suppose with Trainspotting and Naked Lunch out there, one does feel like one should say why Digging The Vein expands rather than repeats the genre. I think the difference lies in the character-rather young, 22, and playing in a somewhat successful band. This author has seen scenes that most people have not, and has gone further at 22 with music than many struggle to for decades. I enjoyed this portion of the book for these experiences alone. Not only that, but the events that followed were written relatively close to the time they occurred, and in a bullet-ricochet style that keeps the pages turning. Few artists can merge all the above factors into prose that exudes youth like a warm summer evening, strains said youth into liquid drugs that can reproduce the feeling again, even if you're really surrounded by trash, urinals and other junkies.
And yet O'Neill maintains the shadowplay wist of a Jane's Addiction melody without the immediate "Hi, I'm a commodity" feel that so much dark culture has made of itself. The narrator comes off as truly interested in the late nineties alt-pop scene he describes without sounding snobby or too cool. This nurtures the reader's curiosity, makes you wonder why this one, and not the others who seem so phony, succumbs to the slavery of the needle...
...and that's the question that makes you read to the final scenes, makes you wonder what kind of heaven has the final say over this young man's life.
It seems reviewers these days often have to talk about what separates a certain piece from its predecessors-a different kind of serial killer; good girl scholar's double life; and my favorite, werewolf/ vampire/ wizard/ demon meets gumshoe detective. Hey man, whatever pays the bills. So I suppose with Trainspotting and Naked Lunch out there, one does feel like one should say why Digging The Vein expands rather than repeats the genre. I think the difference lies in the character-rather young, 22, and playing in a somewhat successful band. This author has seen scenes that most people have not, and has gone further at 22 with music than many struggle to for decades. I enjoyed this portion of the book for these experiences alone. Not only that, but the events that followed were written relatively close to the time they occurred, and in a bullet-ricochet style that keeps the pages turning. Few artists can merge all the above factors into prose that exudes youth like a warm summer evening, strains said youth into liquid drugs that can reproduce the feeling again, even if you're really surrounded by trash, urinals and other junkies.
And yet O'Neill maintains the shadowplay wist of a Jane's Addiction melody without the immediate "Hi, I'm a commodity" feel that so much dark culture has made of itself. The narrator comes off as truly interested in the late nineties alt-pop scene he describes without sounding snobby or too cool. This nurtures the reader's curiosity, makes you wonder why this one, and not the others who seem so phony, succumbs to the slavery of the needle...
...and that's the question that makes you read to the final scenes, makes you wonder what kind of heaven has the final say over this young man's life.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
A classic!
28 Feb 2006
Format:Paperback
I heard about this book from the numerous reviews floating around on the net and the number of short stories and poems Mr O'Neill has published online, so i was tremendously excited to get my hands on a copy of it. It arrived 2 days ago and I read it non stop as soon as it showed up. It was even better than I expected. If drug influenced literature is your thing, then you will get a lot from this book which is certainly a classic of its genre. It is at turns repulsive, beautiful, funny and dark. And most of all it's heartfelt. It's a different kind of book from say "A Million Little Pieces" - it deals with a much harsher story of addiction than that book did for one, but it also is more of a work of literature... definately to be filed alongside Burroughs, Jim Carroll, even Bukowski, rather than James Frey or Jerry Stahl. It's really impressive stuff. Impressive enough that I've sat down and written my first review on Amazon, something I've never felt the urge to do before.
Oh and as an LA resident I liked the fact that it was a step by step guide to the city's drug subculture, and only a handful of locales have been disguised! And as a fan of the Brian Jonestown Massacre it was interesing to get an insiders account of a stint in that particular group.
Oh and as an LA resident I liked the fact that it was a step by step guide to the city's drug subculture, and only a handful of locales have been disguised! And as a fan of the Brian Jonestown Massacre it was interesing to get an insiders account of a stint in that particular group.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
This is the real thing
30 Mar 2006
Format:Paperback
While drug memoirs are a dime a dozen, they all seem to follow the same, exact structure: the joy of experimentation leads to addiction, which leads to disintegration. Then there's usually a "moment of clarity," as Jules said in "Pulp Fiction," and then a grueling recovery resolves in some sort of "clean and sober and loving it" rap just in time for the final act. Well, forget all that spoon-fed, 12-step bullsh*t and read "Digging the Vein" to find out that it ain't always that easy.
With equal amounts of humor, humility, honesty, and exhilaration, O'Neill describes his own bout with addiction, while never resorting to the kinds of simple answers or pat resolutions that are so plentiful in other drug books but so rare in the real world.
With equal amounts of humor, humility, honesty, and exhilaration, O'Neill describes his own bout with addiction, while never resorting to the kinds of simple answers or pat resolutions that are so plentiful in other drug books but so rare in the real world.
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