Smack. (Paperback Fiction).

BURGESS, Melvin. Smack. HarperCollins, Avon. 370p. c1996. 0-06-052187-2. $6.99. SA

To quote from the review of the hardcover in KLIATT, July 1998: Fourteen-year-old Tar runs away from his abusive, alcoholic parents to a "squat" (an abandoned building) in Bristol, and his girlfriend Gemma soon follows. They're taken under the wing of some older people, but when they meet a couple their own age they go off to live with them. Gemma is impulsive, immature, and a sensation-seeker, and when her new friends introduce her to heroin she takes to it eagerly. They convince the anxious, vulnerable Tar to try it too, and soon they're all addicted. Tar turns to stealing and Gemma to prostitution to support their habits. They try to quit but can't succeed, and it's not until Gemma's horror at her addicted friend's having a baby precipitates a crisis that their lives finally change, though Tar may never get clean.

Reminiscent of Trainspotting, this hard-hitting, all-too-believable story conveys both the appeal and the awfulness of heroin. It's told in brief chapters narrated by various characters, including Tar, Gemma, their friends and their parents. First published in Great Britain under the title Junk and winner of the Carnegie Medal and the Guardian prize for fiction, it includes a glossary of British terms at the end to help American readers. Smack delivers a powerful anti-drug message, though its tone and profanities restrict it to mature older teens.