How to Stop Time: Heroin from A to Z

How to Stop Time is truly a lovely book: honest, well-written, funny and merciless. I kept waiting for the veiled inference that those who do heroin on the lower east side are somehow more tortured, more human, more alive than the rest of us, and have to damp down their cutting edge sensibilities with a drug. Thank god Marlowe avoided that trap, and her book is far better than most. Instead, she gives a clear-headed account of herself and her life, with no pretensions and no apologies. She is much bigger than the drug sharing her pages.

I found "How to Stop Time" compelling. Marlowe's writing style is simple and to the point--a trait I appreciate given too many writers spend too much time filling up space with fluff. As for content, the book wanes somewhat in her commentary on "coping" yet she makes up for it all with her candor and directness. The book is definitely a great read for all who have had to look within themselves and learn to love what they see.

Sometimes grim, sometimes funny, always interesting and well-written, "How To Stop Time" offers an innovative analysis of the psychology and meaning of addiction. At the same time, it presents an intriguing and entertaining if sometimes sad portait of the author and a cast of fellow addicts. All the while, it avoids self-pity or sensationalism. A good, intelligent read.

Ann Marlowe is an original thinker; her book is elegant and compelling

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.