THE FANTASTIC LODGE

by Helen MacGill-Ed. Hughes ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 26, 1961

This ""Autobiography of a Girl Drug Addict"" was taped- before her death- by a friend, and provides not only a case history of a life pockmarked by more than the jabs of a needle, but also a sharp, feverishly intense, projection of the sensations of those that make it, and the sick, cramped symptoms of the times between and before the next fix. Janet Clark was a child of the depression- and a divorce; she was also the victim of a derelict mother. So from batting around, to the first indifferent-indiscriminate sexual experiences, to the pregnancy and pain of giving up her baby, to a marriage which revolted her, to Negroes-and married men, to hot jazz and smoking pot- seems a natural progression and for the first time she gets that ""I'm great and the world is-all-cool feeling"". She also meets Bob, and falls in love, and for a few months is really happy- but Bob is hooked too, on horse, a real ""Cheap cheat"" which eventually costs him everything- and each other. Alone in the last years, before she takes her life, she is in and out of analysis, jails, even Lexington.... It is a terrible true story, with its sad contrasts between the incoherence of the addict's phantom world and the intelligent, bitter self-knowledge of the girl who lived it. The vernacular too is quite a jag- you'll really dig some wiggy moments.

Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1961

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1961

Categories: NONFICTION