WHITE SUGAR, BROWN SUGAR

Two young men struggle with addiction in Pyle’s historical novel.

The story begins in the 1960s in Daytona Beach, Florida. Jude Armstrong is a white kid from a messed-up middle-class family. His mother has pretty much given herself over to drink and partying; his straightlaced lawyer father has moved out. (Lansing Armstrong is not a bad dad, but he is temperamentally aloof and incapable of connecting with his son.) Jude’s friend Roosevelt Harris is a poor Black kid whose mother turns tricks to feed her habit. The boys’ addictions begin with glue sniffing and pot smoking and quickly ramp up from there. The two have become friends by happenstance, and soon they’re running with other drugged-out teens who are into much more dangerous stuff. At one point, a girl OD’s while they’re bingeing, and the cops catch them, but even that’s not enough to break the grip of the illicit substances. A second drug bust is enough to scare Roosevelt straight, but not Jude, who has to bounce along rock bottom until Roosevelt finally drags him to an A.A. meeting. The real strength of this well-written book is in its descriptions of wild drug orgies (“His brain crackled like the time he’d eaten a spoonful of horseradish. Zoooom. He was going in high speed”) and what it’s like to be a slave to your next fix (or, in the long, drawn-out case of Jude, your next drink). The author deftly catalogs all the excuses that addicts give themselves, the fleeting euphoria that rules their lives, the wallowing in self-pity, the resentment toward those who try to help, and the awful harm that they inflict on those close to them. Lansing and Roosevelt are often close to giving up on Jude, but they stick by him; this is a story of heroic caring and friendship. And yet, the final pages recount a poignant sailing trip during which Jude again faces a diabolical temptation—Pyle’s narrative has the powerful ring of truth.

A bracing tale that will shake the reader.