Yay or Nay? 
Yay! (73%)
Yay! (73%)
Consensus: Clegg has written a crisp and enthralling memoir; short and to the point, never making you wonder when it will end.
Description: Bill Clegg had a thriving business as a literary agent, a supportive partner, trusting colleagues, and loving friends when he walked away from his world and embarked on a two-month crack binge. He had been released from rehab nine months earlier, and his relapse would cost him his home, his money, his career, and very nearly his life … [more]
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8 Book Reviews for “Portrait of an Addict as a Young Man: A Memoir” by Bill Clegg
- Clegg’s prose, while pretentious at times, is graceful and poetic, maintaining an inverse relationship with his sanity. The most heightened, elegant descriptions are of his descent into drug-fueled hysteria in the days before he is committed to a psychiatric ward.
- Bill Clegg’s harrowing tale of crack-cocaine addiction created a mixed reaction in me. The part of me that responds to effective writing and a dramatic story responded one way. The part of me that has been in recovery for alcoholism for more than 20 years responded another. Whatever your perspective on addiction and addiction memoirs, “Portrait of an Addict as a Young Man” is a book that will not soon be forgotten.
- “Portrait of an Addict as a Young Man,” however pretentiously titled, rings true in brutal, blunt strokes. We can all take some measure of happiness that Clegg’s durability and his talents have left him as a literary agent with big-name authors at a big-name agency.
- Moreover, as crack nightmares go, one would have to say that Clegg’s experiences occupy the tamer end of the scale…. The absence of any particularly exotic or extraordinary element in Clegg’s story is not, in and of itself, a mark against it. On the contrary, in an age in which the writing of memoirs seems to have degenerated into an atrocity contest, there is something rare and refreshing about an author who is content to confess such unexceptional miseries.
- Yet few memoirs so clearly, in crisp, absorbing prose, depict such a telling likeness of an addict.
Published the 12th day of June, 2010 in The Oregonian | Reviewed by J. David Santen Jr. | Full Review
- Bill Clegg has repaired his career and, with this book, he joins the company of writers worth hearing from again.
Published the 16th day of June, 2010 in The Chicago Tribune | Reviewed by Kirk Davis Swinehart | Full Review
- Whatever black comedy there is in Mr. Clegg’s book dwindles pretty quickly. “Portrait of an Addict as a Young Man” is a mesmerizing bummer; reading it is like letting the needle down on a Nick Drake album. He tells his story in short, atmospheric paragraphs, each separated by white space, each its own strobe-lighted snapshot of decadent poetic memory. It’s an earnest style that mostly works. This is a short book that pulls you in and spits you back out before you have time to tire of it.
Published the 15th day of June, 2010 in The New York Times | Reviewed by Dwight Garner | Full Review
- Clegg’s writing is very lyrical and almost poetic. (As a literary agent, he walks the walk with good writing.) He uses extreme detail and matter-of-factly describes the taste of crack, the different ways to make a “scraper” to clean out the last bit of crack, or crumbs, from the stem of a pipe, and his random trysts with strangers…. When Clegg finally goes to rehab and gets clean, the book seems in a rush to finish. It would be nice to know what happened next — and how Clegg decided to share his story with the world. Aside from that, “Portrait of an Addict” stands out and is worth reading.
Published the 18th day of June, 2010 in Associated Press | Reviewed by Alicia Rancilio | Full Review
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