Fast Lives: Women Who Use Crack Cocaine

by Claire E. Sterk

Providing insight into drug use from the point of view of female users, this volume tells of the complex lives, challenges, and choices of women who use crack cocaine. While popular images of these women present them simply as unreliable individuals, unfit mothers, and women who will do almost anything for crack, Claire Sterk's ethnographic research reveals the nature and meaning of crack cocaine use in the larger context of their lives - including the impact of such issues as gender, class and race.

Genres: Anthropology, Sociology

242 pages, Paperback

First published February 17, 1999

Reviews

[Aria Wanek · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mixed feelings — very straightforward writing which I appreciated but lacked broader theoretical insight or in-depth participant observation. Relies almost solely on interviews, but the contents of the interviews were rich and had important insights.

[Kevin McAvoy · Rating 3 out of 5]

How tragic these women's lives are.
They are dealt a very sad hand in life and no assistance is succesful enough to rehabilitate them.
The book opened my eyes to the horrors lived in our cities.