Like Being Killed

by Ellen Miller

"I could never predict what was going to ruin me and what was going to rescue me..." Ilyana Meyerovich has never been very far front disaster and loss. A self-described "suicidal, strung-out, psychotic Jew under thirty" Ilyana retreats into her astonishing mind, prays to obscure Catholic saints, and seeks her equilibrium in six white lines laid out on the kitchen table of a squalid Lower East Side apartment. Masochism and nihilism form the twin poles of Ilyana's heroin blurred existence, but this was not always so.

Genres: Fiction, Drugs, Mental Health, Addiction, Mental Illness, Death, Contemporary

352 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

Reviews

[karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

HAPPY PRIDE MONTH!!

there is nothing more boring than a junkie. a drunk will put on a good show; stumble around, maybe vomit explosively, and most drunks, even serious drunks, manage to retain a certain charm which allows them to successfully cadge drinks. cokeheads and speedfreaks are capable of carrying on conversations, even if half the time it is difficult to follow their logic. but at least they're trying, and you can always just watch their teeth grind. people on hallucinogens (do people still do those anymore?), all you need is a flashlight and a wall, and they can entertain for hours. but junkies. they are just really obstacles to step over on your way to the bathroom - not entertaining at all. selfish, really. and junkie fiction is usually the lowest of the low in terms of entertainment value. either it's shock value "look at what people are willing to do for a fix" tales, or glossily redemptive "look at my transformation". yawn.

that being said,
i fucking love this book. and i've given up utterly on its ever coming back into print. there were rumors of her writing a second book, which have also seemed to evaporate. so i give up on that, too. and i ordinarily wouldn't dig this book because it is, it's a drug narrative. but it's about all manner of self-destructive behavior and squalor but with moments of heartbreaking tenderness. and yes, the narrator is very articulate which is odd for a junkie, but it's not the same kind of articulate in-your-faceness that is in, say, calamity physics. it's not treacly or perky. it's nihilistic self-loathing jewish rage. it's a sexually brutal entanglement with a plumber, a misplaced religious/racial identity, the obligatory AIDS-character, the power of chain gang music, and lesbian peach pie.

but nicole richie's novel is still in print. amazing.

come to my blog!

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is quite a book. If Ellen Miller wasn’t a junkie she had intimate knowledge of them. She is no William S. Burroughs, who I believe romanticized heroin addiction. She is a realist, and the reality is repulsive.

This book brought back so many buried memories. Here, I am tempted to write a review detailing my own experiences with junkies, or I should say a particular junkie, but I can’t do it. You know the kind of destructive relationship I am talking about. Almost everyone has had one, though it may not have had anything to do with drug addiction. It is a relationship that brings out all of the rage and pain you’ve ever felt during childhood or adolescence. It makes you inexplicably crazy.

Let’s just say that I wouldn’t care even the tiniest bit if I found out he was dead. He is the only person I can say I ever truly hated. But, that was another lifetime ago and I was another person back then, and that is one memory lane I am not interested in walking.

Yeah, I could write more about that and maybe get a few votes or whatnot, but instead I’m going to link to Karen’s excellent review and call it a soufflé.

[knig · Rating 3 out of 5]

this is a totally mean and Un PC review, product of jetlag and beer, to be deleted as soon as I sober up. If ever.

The somniferum exegesis of the 1990s New York junkie scene promulgates yet another bard: Ellen Miller. Odious as it is, I need to start miming ‘oops I did it again’ cause, um, so I have. Er, I did. I do not err: Helen Miller pops her clogs in 2008, and I am, yet again, enthralled by the linguistic cotillion of a dead author: an on going ‘thang’ this here with me. I only know she snuffed it because I was reading along all enthusiastic like and all of a sudden it dawned on me: ‘I’m really getting off on this: ergo, she must be dead.’ Indeedy doody, she is, at the ripe old age of 41. I can no longer hide it: I have a talent, a nose, a predisposition for gaging life expectancy. My barometer is pretty simple: if I like the word, the author has passed (or is about to pass) from a noun into a verb. Do people hire for this sort of thing? Send me a line, and a fiver, and I’ll ‘do’ you.

When I say I’m getting off here, what I mean is I’m getting worked up in a lather of righteous indignation thats making me so uptight I could probably open a coke with my sphincter. These people are disgusting! Right from the very first D hit right up until the inevitable end, Miller tracks heroin decline in a dispassionately passionate monotone, see what I mean? This heroin ride thing is fraught with technicalities I’m still working out. Like, one minute protag Ilyana’s shitting herself uncontrollably, the next she can’t go for weeks at a time. I’m trying to follow her bowel movements diligently, (I’m even plotting a chart, on a german toilet shelf, here at the same time as she’s examining the goods), but I don’t know if I’m coming or going. Or rather if SHE is.

Here is a German toilet shelf, obviously a necessary accessory for every self respecting heroin addict (and well, now me):

http://www.spiegel.de/international/h...

Other: Then, one minute, theres dry heaving, the next theres pleghm and white lung cookies and mucous spraying about and people rub it off and lick it down like whip cream, in fact, theres every conceivable body fluid wheezing out and being scooped back up and reinserted greedily to keep every one of these cadavers’ holes lubricated, except, it seems, for one.

People, there is no cum.

This seems to be a big problem, apparently. Not mine, I hasten to add (except for the one time I had to ask for a refund on the Sola http://www.marieclaire.com/sex-love/r... Really, no, they should NOT be selling this in the Northern hemisphere, because, lets face it, the sun only ever shines out of our partners asses this far north, and it ain’t the type to power anything that don’t run on methane) Oh, no, this is between two heroin junkies going at it: there just ain’t enough Elbow Grease in the world to send these two off to the races. Ilyana and Paul make the awful scraping sound of two skeletons grinding against each other on a corrugated tin roof, with no end in sight. The only fluid visible to the naked eye being copious amounts of sweat lining the emaciated corpuses with glistening sheen, and saliva drooling over sunken, hollow chests (another junkie prerequisite.) Needless to say, no one comes. Ever. Despite all my rooting: I mean, how many times have I gripped the edge of the seat and bellowed: you can do it Paul, just stick with it: stick it, stick...aaawww. Shucks.

Its like, two anorexic stick insects just have no business together. Where, exactly, is the traction, I ask? At least one party needs to be padded out (and I’m not just saying that to justify the existence of my own blubber. Of which, there may or may not be lots. I’m not saying though, because this is only HALF a pissed review. As in, half the bottle is still right here in front of me. No, I’m saying this because we the people of England know whats what. This is what I’m talking about:




Its not just my padding on show I’m talking about, Ilyana starts off like that too at first, before the heroin, (as does her roommate, Suze), and Paul, who can’t keep his grubby fingers off either of them, is, of course a ‘feeder’ in the first half of the book.

Which begs the next question: why does Ilyana then spend a chapter trying to insert a pesky femcap which has a mind of its own up her pun%$*i: it pops out willfully with great big sucking sounds, ricochets off mouldy and greasy walls, plops into vomit swirled urine landscaping the bathroom floor, where it mates with newly emerging biological life forms (faecal colibacteria), and is then reinserted where the sun don’t shine, but by the time its beaten into submission, the window of opportunity is gone. And lets face it, its not like she really needs a femcap to begin with. The woman must be a legend in her own mind: how exactly is she going to conceive, with practically every major organ failing, with bacterial and pulmonary infections, hematic damage, collapsed veins, psychiatric comorbidity and high on a heady combination of nilotonin, celotin, percodan, talwin, dalmane, veronol, brevital, gemonil, dantrium, xanax, serax, mylosine, alurate, medomin, demerol, verenol, restoril, halcyon, noludar, gemonil and Librium, taken with anti-puking agents to keep it down: a smidgen of raglan or compazine, a few speedballs, half a litre of vodka, and a ‘herringbone high: the black void of heroin, and the frosty white of cocaine being the perfect combination of favourite extremes: too much and too little’. Is this a woman who needs a femcap, I ask? Not only that, but can you imagine the next scene? Taking the blighted thing out? She obviously never read this or she would have never started this ‘operation’.

http://www.aphroditewomenshealth.com/...

What is it with these people? I mean, you ever have the feeling that the whole world has gone mad and you’re the only and last sane human left on the planet? What is it with all the pushing and the shoving. Everybody needs to calm down. Am I the only one who can see the light here? Am I the only one who has heard of the bathroom buddy (whose virtues I only recently extolled to a GR friend). Just look at this baby:

http://www.amazon.com/Ableware-F72506...

It can’t be just me who can immediately see the versatility of this most excellent product, which no heroin addict should be without. (nor me, for that matter). Do I need to draw diagrams here, to show the ontology between a bathroom buddy and a femcap? Sheesh.

Now, the characters who aren’t wallowing in their own filth and excrement all day long, and of course who haven’t ODed in a spectacularly gross fashion, but actually make an effort to go to the methadone clinic, pardon, ‘the juice bar’, (heh heh, the juuuice bar. Whatever next. We already got the Wax Bar and the Washeria Bar (thats the Laundromat, folks), neither being places I frequent voluntarily. I mean, after Julia Roberts came out like this ten years ago




I have seen the light, and gone all au naturel. Hirsute, yet dead sexy. I mean, who says plaits are only for cranial hair anyway.

Anyway, these people are a breed even more incredulous than their full blown junkie brethren. Think about it. If you’re busy shooting up, and amusing your friends by stringing spaghetti up one nostril and out the other, inter alia, and sticking cigarette butts in your tracheal hole (is this whats called chipping when you’re a full blown heroin addict?), you don’t have too much spare time to consider the fuckedy fuckness of your fucked upness. But. If you’ve made that small step and decided that you’ve had enough of your brain come tumbling down your snout, then its high ball time.
What, pray tell, is the point (re Paul) of hauling your sorry ass down to the Clinic every goddam day if the whole debacle isn’t meant to be a means to an end, rather than the end in itself. Isn’t the whole idea to suffer this ritual so you can come out unencumbered at the other end? Who would want to milk the meth indefinitely, and why? Its up and down to that clinic like a whores knickers: theres no getting away for even a day. And imagine the palaver if you miss the dose? Sheesh.

Heres the bottom line: There is a big ole elephant in the rom. Houston, we have a PROBLEM. I know it, Ilyana and her cronies know it, I know they know it, they know I know they know it, et, etc. But, instead of dealing with the problem, these people spend enormous time and energy trying to re-arrange their lives to the fit around the problem. It becomes justifiable to forfeit sex, food, cleanliness, friendship, boyfriend/girlfriend relationships, everything really just to feed this black hole. I’ve seen this before, and the festering canker doesn’t even have to be D: any old problem has that power, to reshape a life. If we let it. But I’m holding the fort: no one messes with my Loofah, Papa Johns OR my bush.

[Batsap · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is a good warning against drugs. If you do them you'll start talking a load of pretentious nonsense and think you're being ever so goddang profound.

[Hanna Anderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I finished this book, I had these big old goosebumps all up and down my arms and legs, and I had to just sit there and blink back tears for awhile. I didn’t even know why I was crying, I just felt so impacted by this book. And at the same time I can’t even really say if I liked this book, but I just know that this book was extraordinarily moving.

At (many) times, this book is disgusting, heart wrenching, repulsive. But then at other times it’s beautiful, thought-provoking, hopeful.

So many moments while reading I thought I was just going to put it down and walk away for good. I attribute my perseverance to finish on my own stubbornness and the fact that this book is rife with Jewish/Yiddish references.

I’d give basically all the major trigger warnings (drugs, overdoses, death, suicide, sexual assault, mental illness, etc.) for this book, so it wasn’t fun or easy to read, but damn it was a powerful experience.

“You think Jews sit around debating whether or not there can legitimately be a Jewish state before the Messiah arrives? That Conservative and Reform and Orthodox and Reconstructionist Jews argue theology? Bagels! That’s a pressing concern!” (113)

[Cynthia Paschen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I almost did not make it through the first chapter. Nothing more boring than junkies talking with other junkies.

Miller's character Ilyana is a junkie, a brainy junkie.

(page 191) "I tormented and entertained myself by making a literary exercise out of calling myself the vilest names, beginning with archaic epithets: dastard, jade, losel, rogue, miscreant, wastrel, puling cur, scoundrel, rapscallion, pilgarlic, caitiff, blackguard, scallywag. I hurled Shakespearean insults at myself--fusty nut with no kernel; whoreson, beetle-headed, flap-ear'd knave; bedlam brain-sick duchess; and my favorite, eater of broken meats.

These characters are still rattling around in my head. Miller was a terrific writer. Some parts were disgusting and pretty tough to read, but harder to look away. I could not skip a word.

[Isaac · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a junkie story, and it's every bit as much of a struggle as you expect from this types of stories. It's not a tragedy though, and it's got a surprising finish in my view. The writing in this book is beautiful, and the story is extremely engrossing.

It's a real shame this book isn't better known. I saw her read at Miami and she was incredible. Her dry sense of humor definitely comes across in the book. FYI although the protagonist resembles her in many ways Ms. Miller was never a junkie, she was however a science nerd.

[Judith Podell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Where's the Female PHilip Roth, I've asked myself for years, and ask no longer.
Her name is Ellen Miller, and she's dead, damnit. She only wrote one novel, this one which I can't put down.
Philip Roth + William Burrougs and Lou Reed.
More raw than Laurie Anderson. Kinder to the reader than Kathy Acker.
I mean all of this in a good way.

[Daren · Rating 4 out of 5]

Junkies - god they are just awful. They treat themselves so badly, not to mention anyone else with any sort of relationship with them. But this book offers something a little different. Other reviews have said this book is partly (or based on) autobiographical events - which would make it all more interesting. This book sort of offers the 'thinking persons heroin addict'. Not sure about the reality, but if this is autobiographical, then it supports the clever writing, and articulate descriptions in the book.

Mostly what I like about this book is it is intelligent and readable, unlike other drug-hazed writing (think Burroughs - I hated Naked Lunch, as for me it was pointless rambling).

There is some horrific content in this book (the blurb does warn us of masochism and nihilism), which makes this book an even better discouragement from heading down a heroin route, and why it is better to steer clear of junkies...

I don't want to plot spoil, so I guess I will have to leave the review there...

[Steven Allen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an interesting read into the depths of depravity someone will sink to when under the control of illicit drugs. This would not be a book that I would have chosen for myself. I likely would not have even considered reading this book if it were not recommended by a friend. While a date is never mentioned, I believe from the lack of cell phones and other electronic garbage that clutters our lives, that this book is set in the late '70s or early '80s. There are several rather graphic depictions of sex, and some sexual practices that some might feel as deviant. Not for the weak of stomach, as there are several really gross acts in this book. Certainly food for thought in this book and one could read it as a cautionary tale. The text is very well written, and the dialogue easy to follow.

[Ally Bishop · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is by far one of the most intense, horrific, intimate books I've ever read. Not for the faint of heart, it takes you down the road with the main character in ways I won't even hint at, as it will ruin the story for you. Some days I had to stop reading it, because it was affecting my mood so strongly. The writing is brilliant, and my only sadness over it is that the author never produced another book before she died. The main character is offensive and engaging. While story is part of the telling, it is truly a study of what makes us human, what we are capable of surviving, and how life can turn on a dime and leave you with only that which you can be thankful for, because your regrets have worn out. Highly recommend.

[Sage Morton · Rating 5 out of 5]

I own this book and have been toying with picking it up to read again because all I can remember is how much I absolutely LOVED it. I have read so many different genres in my life and this is the one that has stuck with me for 20 years.

It tells such an amazingly heart wrenching, heart warming, story of someone living through drug addiction and the lives around them.

I was scrolling here tk see what my next book should be when I had a flash of this one and thought, "I wonder if anyone else was as moved by me from this book." And clearly, the answer is an absolute, "YES!' OK, you've convinced me. I am going to read it again.

I can't wait to see if it has the same impact on me the 2nd go around.

[Garry · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long"

An amazing book by a remarkable writer. Miller's prose is superb and there is a fearlessness to her writing that you don't often see. Won't go into the content as most reviewers here already have. Just bought Brooklyn Noir Vol 1 as it contains one of her short stories. A definite loss to the literary world, and no doubt, to those who knew her personally. As others have said in their reviews, I fucking loved it. Cannot recommend highly enough.

[Debumere · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am rubbish at describing what I read. Ellen Miller is an incredibly impressive writer. There have only been a handful of books that I have read that I have thought amazing and this is one of them. Took a long while to read it because it was drying out in the hot press but I kept glancing at the page number because I was too aware that I was reaching the end. Fantastic.

[Kenette H. · Rating 2 out of 5]

This one made me a little dizzy at times I felt like i was lsoing myself but I think that might be the point of the book. on the all and all I finished it but was more relived that it was over. It not reallly a book I would tell anyone about but im happy I can add it to my stack of books.

[Megan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this to be interesting:

http://danishapiro.com/all-titles/ell...

[Morgan Schulman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best book about women, mental illness and addiction I've ever read, and I've read many.

[Brenna · Rating 1 out of 5]

NOPE

[Mirjam]

A self-described "suicidal, strung-out, psychotic Jew under thirty,"...

Hey now.

[Amy Lovestogetlost21 · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am very indifferent about this book. It is definitely unique.

[Leni · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book because I heard it described as too upsetting to read which meant I had to read it.

The fact that this is the authors only book and that she seems to have died in a cloud of mystery made me obsessed.

Sometimes it was the darkest thing I’ve ever read and considering that, it was difficult to accept such a hopeful ending. Was it hopeful or does that say more about me that I even thought it was hopeful?

But I love how committed this book was to its title - like being killed - how every part of it attempted to explain what that meant. And I didn’t expect it to approach that meaning from a Jewish perspective. It articulated things that I have never been able to articulate myself.

« The idle gravestone shop, like the people who needed it decades ago was here and not here, gone but not gone enough. I cringed at the palpable presence of absence. The lack — of people, of a history I might have loved — was right there. People and things seemed to hurt most when they were close by, in my house, in my body; my body was just a house, a structure I conserved and desecrated, inhabited and deserted, remembered and forgot”

This book isn’t perfect at all and at times its offensive and disappointing but I have to give it five stars for being so strange and mysterious and disgusting and brave.


Also, Like Being Killed is what Milk Fed wanted to be and wasn’t at all, sorry.

[Jan · Rating 4 out of 5]

so this novel, holy fuck. i mean it has some problems, but jesus what a writer! my friend beth recommended it, via tara, via maggie. all writers who fell in love with it -- no surprise, since ellen miller was clearly a word genius. i mean, freakishly smart, shockingly creative, and tragically... spoiler alert... dead. we love our tragic heroes. it simultaneously inspired me to write (i.e., finish my damn novel) and made me want to hang it up entirely.
okay, it's not like the junky tale is new and compelling, but i mean, the tranny mugger on the pier who tells her it's not so much a change as a reckoning? and the whole plumber/cucumber scenario? the rant about jewish lower east side signage pentimento and deep, false identity? my vocabulary could not be a fifth that good if i studied my word-a-day calendar for a decade. the lexicography stuff is insanely show-offy but also authentic. i felt like she earned the right to be ridiculously erudite. she had pedant cred.
i have been re-reading parts, especially her stream-of-consciousness rants. some of it kind of reminds me of tropic of cancer henry miller.

[Malcolm Ivey · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was halfway through this novel, reading along on auto-pilot, before I realized I was in the capable hands of a virtuoso. Don't get me wrong, the story itself isn't all that spectacular. There are no breathtaking cliffhangers, no pyrotechnic plot points, no badass twists. It might be the darkest book I've ever read (with respect to Cormac McCarthy's The Road). I'm not even sure I would recommend it to a civilian... But if you're a writer, this one is mando. The sentences rip across the page like lacerations, laying bare the cartilage and bone of truth. The truth about mental illness, the truth about heroin addiction, the truth about the human experience. Narrator Ilyana Meyerovich, brilliant neurotic Jewish junkie daughter of two morbidly obese parents is one of the most memorable characters in literary fiction. If you decide to read this - and I'm not saying you should - check out the blog about the author, written by her MFA writing professor, Dani Shapiro. Guaranteed chills.

[SUSAN · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am sad this book seems so obscure. Originally bought at dollar tree, I used my copy for colleges and black out poetry, not realizing it would be so hard to find another. Google didn't have it, Kindle didn't, not the library, or scribed. So I guess I'll have to pay ten times as much for another one (including shipping anyway).
There's very few books I feel compelled to own. As much as I love books, I know that most of my favorites stay with me, if not physically, so I keep my bookshelf filled with my absolute favorites. This one needs to be there.
Yes, it's about a heroin addict, but no, you don't have to be one to appreciate it. The writing is so beautiful and haunting and painful, it's hard to explain. Of course, if you have a history of addiction, you'll appreciate it even more. The characters are so real, in the absolute worst way. I don't think Ellen Miller has written anything else, and that is just a damn shame.

[Carly · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don’t even know how to start this because this book was so disturbing but so incredibly written. The decent into psychosis, the descent into addiction, the love between Susie & illyana. Some parts of this book were so hard to read but seeing into Illyanas mind and her thought processes were so interesting. It was so poetic and horrifying I loved every minute of it.

Some of these other reviews piss me off as if people who use heroin can’t be intelligent?? Clearly some people don’t understand addiction at all. Addicts are usually extremely intelligent and aware that what they are doing is nonsensical but can’t stop because the drug takes over the spot in their brain where people’s motivations for food and water usually reside it becomes that important this has been studied. I loved the way this book read it was incredibly engrossing and kept me hooked from the beginning. It was insane but also made perfect sense

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

Even extinction didn't guarantee total, irretrievable obliteration. The science library was loaded with documents about the eohippus. The painted vulture. The mastodon. The moa. The heath hen. The passenger pigeon, hunted to extinction, whose immense flocks in low flight formations blacked out the sun and the sky, whose colonies often number 3 billion birds. The last one died in 1914, but people—people who didn’t get out much and never got a suntan—thought and wrote about the birds, rendering them less extinct, and I thought about them.

I hoped to cripple the archivist in my brain, to shred all documents, to burn the books and then the libraries, to expunge all records of the permanent historic entity that was a life.

I never understood Margarita's notion of partying. My exertions were funereal, not festive.

Kill the hunger so as not to starve.

[Alexis Olivia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ellen Miller dives so deep into the psyche of addiction that you feel like you're drowing

I thought the overly intellectual writing was contrived and pompous at first but as I kept reading it not only became necessary for the character but also gave a unique insight into the world of a heroin addict that I didnt think would be possible without going there first hand.
Ellen's detailed accounts of every desire, depraved thought, desperate action and the desolate existence one finds themselves in during the descent into losing yourself brings you right there feeling every morsel she feeds you with.

And that ending.... perfect

[Mike Roper · Rating 5 out of 5]

Visceral, poetic, striking, shocking and perceptive

I'd never heard of this book/author until a friend recommended it to me and I opted to take a chance. One if the greater reading experiences of my life. Not fun, as it is a disturbing and brutal read in places, but important.

The writing is incredible, with a hypnotic quality, laced with emotional and cultural intelligence. The characters are well developed, believable and relatable (even though my own life is nowhere near as extreme).

Highly recommended.

[Michael Weinraub · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not the faint of heart, yikes. Violent sadomasochism and gritty heroin addiction permeate the characters and plot development of this poignant story. And despite some movements and resolutions that required a kind of literary leap of faith, there is an undercurrent of truth and depth here that was very, very gripping to me.

The freedom of obliteration is one phrase that comes to mind. The freedom of choosing to live is another.

I learned about this book from Maggie Nelson's transcendent On Freedom, which I cannot recommend highly enough (for people who like that sort of thing;)

[Sofia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Funny, sad, learnèd, but wildly uneven in terms of compositional quality. There's also a piteous sense of wishfulness, exaggerated somewhat by its author's eventual suicide, a la Lautréamont's Poésies, if less plangent.