The Killer of Love

Rating:
Summary: GRIPPING!
Review: This story of despair, debauchery and a lot of drug abuse paints a grim picture of disaffected youth. Centering around a cocaine-crazed, alcoholic teenager named Jimmy Love, the novel winds its way through the twisted passages of the Hippie House, which is a decrepit den of iniquity. Other house-mates include Crazy Don, a pistol wielding cokehead, and Piper, a charismatic dropout who quotes Milton while tripping on acid while teetering sixty-five feet in the air on a maze of discarded girders he calls The Grid of Self-Knowledge. Jimmy's addiction reaches the acute stage and he cycles through the misery of withdrawal, the anxiety of scoring and the fleeting bliss of the high. As his cocaine and money supply dwindles, he is forced to turn to deprssants and assumes a TKO regimen of Dilaudid and alcohol, which trigger moody memories about his lack of self-confidence, social acceptance, and ultimately, his father, whose death he has never been able to forgive. Conley pulls no punches in describing Jimmy's awful downward spiral and he examines drug addiction with a brutal honesty not often seen.

Rating:
Summary: I Was There.
Review: Though I believe that the book should have been published as a work of fiction in order to protect the guilty, I have to say that looking in from the outside for a change, makes the things that were real, seem as though they couldn't possibly be real. I experienced this time in my life. It is really weird to read about it after all this time. But I must say, although it is one sided, it is pretty accurate to the actual occurances of several mad men. And women. And although I no longer can see the time and temperature from a friends bedroom window, I have to say that this is a time in my life I will never forget. I hope that this review will allow people to step into my shoes without actually having to participate. Are you sceptical? Want proof? Piper is Harper. Nuf said.

Rating:
Summary: Odyssey to Hell!
Review: Though not for the faint of heart, this novel captures a side of life that - like it or not - exists. And the descriptions of the places, people and events in this story are spine- tinglingly real. I, too, am familiar with Fort Sanders and its inhabitants and can tell you from experience that the psychological aspects of this novel are hauntingly accurate. From Jimmy's self-conscious, self-abusing melancholy to Piper's manic dillusions of granduer, Conley takes dead aim at Knoxville's underbelly which, I suspect, is not much different from elements that lie just below the surface of every city in America. I hope this book gets the national recognition it deserves because both the writing and story-telling are first class.