Introduction -- Chapter 1 Bearing Witness: leaving las Vegas (1990) -- Taking the Addict's Voice -- Reclaiming the Addict's Voice -- Listening to the Addict -- Learning from the Addict -- Blacking Out -- Bearing Witness -- Finding Beauty in the Ruins -- Chapter 2 Betraying: Dope (2006) -- A "Woman Set between Contending Forces" -- "I'd Been Places, and Far Too Many of Them" -- (Not) "in a Realm of Deferred Repentance" -- "Poor, Invisible Nadine" -- A Powerful Reimagining of the Noir Form -- Chapter 3 Gaslighting: The Girl On The Train (2015) -- "I Am Not the Girl I Used to Be" -- "Do You Know How Idiotic [...] Damien Felt?"
"Please, Rachel. You've Got to Sort Yourself Out." -- "Something Happened. Something Bad." -- "Everything Is a Lie" -- A Figure for Readers' Own Identity -- Chapter 4 Transgressing: Less Than Zero (1985) -- Black Neon: Exploitative Self-Flagellation -- Transgressive Fiction: The New as Shocking -- Less Than Zero as Transgressive -- Only Stubble: The Mirror as Site of Self-Examination -- Compassionate Listening -- Chapter 5 Disorienting: The Orange Eats Creeps (2010) -- Deformation of Language -- Inconsistency of Tropes -- Disorientation of Readers -- Awakening of Compassion -- Conclusion -- Bibliography -- Index
Summary
The book analyzes the practices and politics of reading the experimental addiction novel, and outlines both a practice and an ethics of reading that advocates for a more compassionate response to addicts than the Western realistic novel traditionally has offered
