White Lines: Writers on Cocaine

by Geno Zanetti (Editor), Geno Zanetti (Editor)

Blow, candy, Charlie, coke, go, ice, rock, snow, crack. Whatever you call it, thrill seekers have surrendered to cocaine's siren call, paid their toll, and sold their souls. Its embrace can be deadly, a place of no return, the ultimate rush, public enemy number one. From the gutter to the penthouse, inner city to outer burb, from the Third World coca farmer to the executive addict, coke is the lifeblood of a global black economy and an outlaw underground. Coke has also been dark muse, torment, and theme to many of our greatest writers. White Lines gathers these literary thrill seekers in a classic and contemporary snort through the fog- and fear-filled streets of Victorian London to the dance macabre of the post-Vietnam culture of the 1970s, from the couch of Dr. Freud and the bacchanal of Mr. Magus, Aleister Crowley, to the narcotic thrill of fin de siecle casino capitalism, White Lines takes you into illicit and artificial worlds, near wild heavens and then deep, down underground. Selections from writers like Irvine Welsh, Bret Easton Ellis, William S. Burroughs, J.G. Ballard, Kim Wozencraft, Terry Southern, Sigmund Freud, Arthur Conan Doyle, Peter Biskind, and Julia Phillips are featured.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Short Stories

352 pages, Paperback

First published December 17, 2002

Reviews

[Nuno Nogueira · Rating 4 out of 5]

It may be just a coincidence that so many of my favourite authors - Ellis, Ballard, Welsh, Wallace - not only had a cocaine addiction, but managed to draw from the experience to write some of the most inspired scenes of contemporary literature. Framed by a spectacular 1-page article by Terry Southern called 'Drugs and the Writer', White Lines delivers a great selection of fiction excerpts, scientific articles, biographic snippets and autobiographical confessions. The book treads the very thin white line between glamorizing the use of cocaine and blaming it for all evils, masterfully avoiding both.

[Meghan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely loved this book. The choice of authors included is brilliant. I really loved reading from Sir Arthur Doyle, Bret Easton Ellis, J.G. Ballard, and Freud among others. This is the perfect book to look at how cocaine transformed from this curious piece of nonfiction to this muse through which many author's fiction were inspired.

[Shannon Barber · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an interesting anthology. There is a mix of non fiction and pieces of fiction. I was familiar with some of the excerpts in the book and I really enjoyed reading them in the context of a book about cocaine. Pleasurable and quick read.

[Karmen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Depressing.