First published 1973
Ernst Weintraub writes poetry in a world gone rotten. Around him, people lose themselves in bottles, needles, and beds, becoming something less than human. The drink calls to him. The drugs promise escape. The sex offers temporary oblivion. Ernst feels the pull of it all, the slow descent that has claimed everyone else in his decaying society. He watches friends and strangers alike surrender their humanity piece by piece. But Ernst faces more than one world's corruption. Three different realities threaten him, each with its own particular form of decay, each offering only a narrow path to survival. The poet must navigate between these collapsing worlds while fighting the urge to give in to the same vices that have destroyed those around him. As an intellectual in a time when thinking itself seems pointless, Ernst confronts the question of whether anyone can maintain their humanity when everything pushes toward animal existence.
Genres: literary-fiction, addiction, 20th-century, 21st-century
Vibes: dark, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: survival, unreliable-narrator
212 pages · Hardcover · New York: Harper & Row, 1973.
Content warnings: addiction, substance-abuse