Reddit reviews The Grass Arena

John Healy's autobiography The Grass Arena is an account of his time as a homeless alcoholic in London in the 1970's. It is regarded as a modern classic and gives a terrifying insight into the life that Healy and the subject of the photo shared.

It was made into a film available here... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIPy8hk3SXM

The book (Far better than the film IMHO) is available here ...http://www.amazon.com/The-Grass-Arena-John-Healy/dp/0141189592

Obviously heroin creates a heightened mood! Even cheese is so addictive because you get a little hit of opium from it.

But I don't think you can reasonably say that a heroin addict is objective about enjoying taking heroin! Yeah, okay, on one level they seem to enjoy it, but it can be self-destructive behaviour!

Oh, I largely agreed with what you said about drugs the other day. People persistently underestimate how dangerous and addictive alcohol is. I say this as someone who can't really drink, and when you can't really drink it soon becomes apparent how much many people drink without thinking!

If you get the chance, read The Grass Arena.

>John Healy's The Grass Arena describes with unflinching honesty his experiences of addiction, his escape through learning to play chess in prison, and his ongoing search for peace of mind. This Penguin Classics edition includes an afterword by Colin MacCabe.

>In his searing autobiography Healy describes his fifteen years living rough in London without state aid, when begging carried an automatic three-year prison sentence and vagrant alcoholics prowled the parks and streets in search of drink or prey. When not united in their common aim of acquiring alcohol, winos sometimes murdered one another over prostitutes or a bottle, or the begging of money. Few modern writers have managed to match Healy's power to refine from the brutal destructive condition of the chronic alcoholic a story so compelling it is beyond comparison.

>John Healy (b. 1943) was born into an impoverished, Irish immigrant family, in the slums of Kentish Town, North London. Out of school by 14, pressed into the army and intermittently in prison, Healy became an alcoholic early on in life. Despite these obstacles Healy achieved remarkable, indeed phenomenal expertise in both writing and chess, as outlined in the autobiographical The Grass Arena.

The Grass Arena is a brilliant book. It is about a first generation Irish person living in London. So not quite what you asked. Imagine one of the characters in a grimmer Pogues song, the old main drag say, wrote a book.

The Grass Arena: An Autobiography - John Healy

The Grass Arena by John Healy