Wasted: The Story of My Son's Drug Addiction

Chapin tells the story of his son's experimentation with drugs in the San Francisco/Marin of the 1960s. The keen eye that witnessed World War II as a severely injured pilot who survived Stalag 17 (recounted in the excellent book "Milk Run") turns his gaze to life after the war, the husband and father he became, and the tragedy of his young teenage son and friends struggling with addiction and its mental and emotional fallout.The cultural transition of the 60s and its complex roots in the war years will never be better chronicled. Chapin spares nothing in this account of his son's spinout while trying to find his identity in a radically changing world; the author doesn't wallow in self-pity or defensiveness as he probes the social and individual psyche. In the interest of disclosure, I worked with Mr. Chapin during the mid-1990s, after his years with the chronicle. He was a contracted editor for a trade magazine I worked for, and I enjoyed getting to know him, though he rarely mentioned the events of the two books. I became intrigued by "Milk Run" because I have an interest persisting from my childhood in WWII. "Wasted" captured my interest after my own experience with Sonoma/Marin's drug culture, and the debilitating impact it can have on young people. Chapin offers no pat answers, and neither do I. His strength and forthrightness impressed me before I knew anything about him, and I am humbled to have known someone so brave after having come to know the man through his books.