Heroin is a selfish drug and its users are boring people. Istill hold that view after reading this book. The more I learn aboutthe notion of being cool, the more I see ordinary people facing their day to day anxieties and overcoming them without resorting to drugs, as heroic, indeed, as super cool. I was keen to read the work as I have two adult children who have been users for over a decade. Although they have led fairly normal lives the financial and emotional costs have been considerable. One has Hepatitis C. As they injected I assume they were more cool than Ann Marlowe. But I was especially interested in the insights by Ms Marlowe regarding relationships - because the user's mind is constantly concerned with how long since they got on, when they're next going to get on, etc, etc they are not "there" with you. They are self-absorbed. I was also interested in the users attitude to money (Heroin habits are denominated in dollars not by mass or frequency), sex, home, glamour, dealers all of which are conveniently covered in alphabetical order. I'm convinced the most effective weapon against heroin is not draconion laws and all out war - which is clearly being lost, just as Prohibition was lost in the USA - but knowledge. Ann Marlowe's book is an intelligent and useful insight into the user's motivation, lifestyle, priorities and experience. It is well written and an absorbing and honest work.

Many people can take Ann Marlowe's book, How to Stop Time, in many ways. It could be seen as a ruthless, crude journal of a heroin user or a story of a women that just wants to share her experiences with her audience. How to Stop Time is a beautifully written story that can capture anyone's attention. It is an extremely personal account of her survival in the dope world. She is honest, blunt, and straightforward about everything so we get a very good look at what she went through. The many disturbing parts of the book only make the story more real and true. The things that she attempts to explain about the crazy life of a drug addict is something that the media will never uncover. Her style of writing is simple and to the point and her explanation of self destruction is something that every reader can relate to on some level. She not only discusses the life of heroin use but she dwells into much deeper topics such as the economics and psychology of the addiction. She clearly shows that she isn't afraid to tell the truth which provides for an extremely compelling and daring analysis.

As a rule, I'm not all that interested in "the literature of addiction," but this book works as memoir, as cultural criticism, as philosophy. Or simply as a story -- of a remarkable woman's struggle with her demons and the demons of post-modern life. The dictionary format (which she seems to have chosen because, like heroin, it "stops time") doesn't keep you from getting wrapped up in the story. On the contrary -- like the similar device in Pavic's Dictionary of the Khazars -- it sets the story in a hall of mirrors, so that the implications stretch endlessly in all directions.

My only worry about the book is that Marlowe may be TOO remarkable -- that her obvious energy and strength of character make her an atypical addict, and throw doubt on her generalizations. But she claims that a lot of the other heroin addicts she knew were like her in many ways, and maybe she's right. Besides, I don't suppose de Quincey or Burroughs or Malcolm Lowry were "typical" addicts, either.