Methamphetamine for Dummies

by Poe Ballantine

From losing my virginity to a sociopath, to being homeless in New Orleans, to becoming a crack fanatic in Niagara Falls and a meth head in San Diego, to living in a porno motel in Louisville, to working on an ancient schooner in Maine, to seeing God, to losing my mind in Iowa, to dealing with a dead friend in Mexico, to a plot to punch John Irving in the nose in Portland, Oregon, living on an average of 400 dollars a month in drifter mode across the crumbling USA, all these stories, I must emphasize, though no doubt some of my best, are reprints from collections gone out of print. A hefty compendium, and a wonderful way to feel good about yourself simply by comparing your life with mine as I get off the bus again and again in a strange town with very little money and am soon led through the door marked HAZARDOUS CHEMICALS.

269 pages, Paperback

Published May 12, 2023

About the author

Poe Ballantine is a fiction and nonfiction writer known for his novels and especially his essays, many of which appear in The Sun. His second novel, Decline of the Lawrence Welk Empire, won Foreword Magazine’s Book of the Year. The odd jobs, eccentric characters, boarding houses, buses, and beer that populate Ballantine’s work often draw comparisons to the life and work of Charles Bukowski and Jack Kerouac.

One of Ballantine’s short stories, The Blue Devils of Blue River Avenue, was included in Best American Short Stories 1998 and one of his essays, 501 Minutes to Christ, appeared in Best American Essays 2006. [wikipedia]