Down and Out on Murder Mile: A Novel (P.S.)
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The continuation of O'Neill's autobiographical debut, Digging the Vein (2006), even more caustic than its predecessor. After a quick recount of his descent into a massive opium habit and marriage to similarly fixed Susan, the unnamed narrator confesses the nature of his troubles. "I needed to know that Death was here, in the room, and that I was too fast, too young, and too smart for him." Fleeing Los Angeles, the newlyweds return home to London only to enter the institutional nightmare of the city's overflowing methadone clinics, from which the whip-smart but self-destructive musician reports with fascinating candor. He manipulates his physician while simultaneously using 12-step meetings to find drug dealers to feed his compulsions. Yet he still pretends to be part of society, whether shoplifting from his record store job or practicing his craft as a member of fly-by-night rock bands. While most of the action focuses on the desperate mechanics of addiction, O'Neill also paints London as a character and co-conspirator, illuminating the filthy squalor of council slums and the florescent detritus of a broken system. This is no redemption song. "The lie at the heart of treatment centers, the recovery industry, and self help groups is that that life off drugs is any better than life on them," the narrator declares. "A preposterous idea. The two states coexist in a parallel sense - to say that one is preferable to the other is to miss the point entirely." He struggles to break the kick-then-relapse cycle, but fails until he meets and falls in love with punk-rock princess Vanessa from New York. Call it a junkie fairy tale: Boy meets girl, gets clean and lives.The whole truth with no reservations: not a pretty story, but a rare telling. (Kirkus Reviews) --Kirkus Reviews
"Funny, moving and completely authentic. It is a map of hell with directions showing his readers exactly how to get there." --Sebastian Horsley - Newstatesman
"Tony O'Neill's first novel, Digging the Vein, is already a something of an underground classic, and this is another fine helping from a man who has done it all and lived to write the tale." --The Times
"Funny, moving and completely authentic. It is a map of hell with directions showing his readers exactly how to get there." --Sebastian Horsley - Newstatesman
"Tony O'Neill's first novel, Digging the Vein, is already a something of an underground classic, and this is another fine helping from a man who has done it all and lived to write the tale." --The Times
Product Description
After exhausting their resources in the slums of Los Angeles, the nameless narrator and his wife settle in London's worst section - its 'murder mile.' There, perservering past failed treatments and heartbreaking relapses, the narrator reclaims his life and recovers. His wife does not.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
If you like this kind of reading you won't be able to put it down. He doesn't try to surround it by forced literature, to give excuses and blames, it is brut and honest the 'diary' of someone who lost it along the way somewhere.
I enjoyed it very much!
I enjoyed it very much!
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
3 reviews
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Murderously intriguing read
12 Nov 2008
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
With DOWN AND OUT ON MURDER MILE, Tony O'Neill doesn't romanticize the junkie life; he proves instead that it's everyone else who romanticizes the sober life. And yet for all of its outsider coolness, it is not as preachy as the drug narratives of the 1990's about its anti-materialism. The speaker's lyricism trumps any attempts to condemn him as whiny. Instead he seems desperately aware and even sensitive within a world where narcissism and ignorance are so rampant it is perfectly normal for them to go unironically unnoticed.
LA serves as ground zero for the explosively grotesque addiction. The thunderous militarism of America's attitude toward drugs blackens every street and secrets every high. When the narrator is whisked with his junkie wife to London, there is a brief sigh of relief. But London proves to have its own secret daggers. Life in London becomes like trading in your old lover for one who promises to beat your body instead of your face so it won't show as much.
The voice here is simultaneously youthful and eternal. It has captured what the beats captured in the 1950's not by going off on be-bop and jazz or even new jazz. It instead rejuvenates their spirit by portraying an international exchange of subculture and colorful adolescence that would make William Gibson jealous.
It evokes the spirit of Burroughs with due respect and even passion. But really it is better than Burroughs because it's easier to read and has girls.
And so, while O'Neill ultimately agrees with Aubrey DeGrey that "life is a terminal illness", one must read this book to understand the light and intricate web of ideas that thwart simple solutions to problems like addiction. Because in the end, survival itself is no solution or purpose. But beauty, shared, smashed, bleeding or otherwise, has every right to exist.
LA serves as ground zero for the explosively grotesque addiction. The thunderous militarism of America's attitude toward drugs blackens every street and secrets every high. When the narrator is whisked with his junkie wife to London, there is a brief sigh of relief. But London proves to have its own secret daggers. Life in London becomes like trading in your old lover for one who promises to beat your body instead of your face so it won't show as much.
The voice here is simultaneously youthful and eternal. It has captured what the beats captured in the 1950's not by going off on be-bop and jazz or even new jazz. It instead rejuvenates their spirit by portraying an international exchange of subculture and colorful adolescence that would make William Gibson jealous.
It evokes the spirit of Burroughs with due respect and even passion. But really it is better than Burroughs because it's easier to read and has girls.
And so, while O'Neill ultimately agrees with Aubrey DeGrey that "life is a terminal illness", one must read this book to understand the light and intricate web of ideas that thwart simple solutions to problems like addiction. Because in the end, survival itself is no solution or purpose. But beauty, shared, smashed, bleeding or otherwise, has every right to exist.
Down and Out
22 Nov 2010
A very talented book by a talented writer. Anyone who has been addicted to something, or tried to kick their addiction should be able to relate to the story. Captures the partying and drug taking culture really well. Reads like an admixture of Burroughs, and Hunter S. Thompson.
1 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Walking the Wild Side
12 Nov 2008
Format:Paperback
I reviewed this book at 3AM Magazine
http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/walking-the-wild-side/
Mike Covey,
editor, Lit Up Magazine
http://stokeycat.blogspot.com
http://litupmagazine.wordpress.com
http://bookchapters.wordpress.com
http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/walking-the-wild-side/
Mike Covey,
editor, Lit Up Magazine
http://stokeycat.blogspot.com
http://litupmagazine.wordpress.com
http://bookchapters.wordpress.com
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