"AS UN-AMERICAN AS RABIES": ADDICTION AND IDENTITY IN AMERICAN POSTWAR JUNKIE ...

220 Pages·2009·0.51 MB·English

"AS UN-AMERICAN AS RABIES": ADDICTION AND IDENTITY IN AMERICAN
POSTWAR JUNKIE LITERATURE

A Dissertation
by
ABIGAIL LEIGH BOWERS

Submitted to the Office of Graduate Studies of
Texas A&M University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

December 2009

Major Subject: English
"AS UN-AMERICAN AS RABIES": ADDICTION AND IDENTITY IN AMERICAN
POSTWAR JUNKIE LITERATURE

A Dissertation
by
ABIGAIL LEIGH BOWERS

Submitted to the Office of Graduate Studies of
Texas A&M University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Approved by:
Chair of Committee, Sally Robinson
Committee Members, Mary Ann O'Farrell
Chuck Taylor
John J. McDermott
Head of Department, M. Jimmie Killingsworth

December 2009

Major Subject: English
iii
ABSTRACT

"As Un-American as Rabies": Addiction and Identity in American Postwar Junkie
Literature. (December 2009)
Abigail Leigh Bowers, B.A.; M.A., Bowling Green State University
Chair of Advisory Committee: Dr. Sally Robinson

The years following World War II symbolized a new beginning for the United
States. While at the height of global power, Americans founds that they were able to
experience a leisurely existence where items, desired instead of necessary, could be
purchased by almost anyone. This increased prosperity, however, also caused a rise in
the number of addicts that included not only the hard-core drug users, but "junkies" who
were addicted to filling the emptiness within through the use of illegal drugs to
television to sex in order to do so. This dissertation examines the phenomenon of the
rise of addicts following World War II, using the literature of addiction in order to
elucidate the reasoning behind this surge.
Contemporary American authors formed a new genre of writing, "junkie
literature," which chronicles the rise of addiction and juxtaposes questions of identity
and the use of "junk." Burroughs's Junky and Trocchi's Cain's Book are among the first
to represent the shift in the postwar years between earlier narratives of addiction and the
rise of junkie literature through an erasure of previously held beliefs that addiction was
the result of a moral vice rather than a disease. Jim Carroll's The Basketball Diaries,
iv
Ann Marlowe's How to Stop Time: Heroin from A to Z, and Linda Yablonsky's The
Story of Junk continue this trend of semi-autobiographical writing in an effort to show
the junkie's identity in society, as well as the way addiction mirrors capitalism and
consumerism as a whole. Finally, Hubert Selby's Requiem for a Dream, Bret Easton
Ellis's Less than Zero, and John Updike's Rabbit at Rest explore a different kind of junk
addiction, focusing on the use of television, diet pills, sex, cocaine, and food to fill an
ineffable void inside that the characters of the novels find themselves unable to
articulate. Using Julia Kristeva's theory of abjection, as well as various socio-historical
critics, this dissertation investigates the rise of addiction narratives in the postwar years,
linking the questions of identity to consumerism in contemporary American culture.
v
DEDICATION

This dissertation is dedicated to the following people: to my mother, who has
always been there to pick me up when I fall; to my father, who taught me that sometimes
we get answers to questions we don't know we've asked; to Marina, the Sam to my
Frodo; to my brother and sister-in-law, who taught me the meaning of persistence and
compromise; to Paradox and Finn, who taught me that all work and no play make for a
dull girl; to Crux, who taught me the meaning of infinite patience and fortitude; and
finally, to Rugger, for whom there are no words.
vi
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank my committee chair, Dr. Sally Robinson, who read through
numerous drafts with patience and humor, and who let me dream as big as I wanted to
with this project. I would also like to thank my committee members, Dr. Mary Ann
O'Farrell, for all the good advice and criticism; Dr. Chuck Taylor, for his insight and
suggestions; and to Dr. John J. McDermott, for his support.
Thanks also go to the Texas A&M Department of English and, in particular,
Paulette Lesher. I would also like to acknowledge the Texas A&M University College
of Liberal Arts, as well as the Glasscock Center.
I would also like to acknowledge the role that each of these people played in the
writing of this dissertation: Rachel Gaspar, for more than twenty years of friendship and
support; Amy Montz, for her ever-present ear, sage advice, and unconditional support;
Anthony Rintala, for his humor and ability to find an appropriate comment or reference
always; Harley Quinn, for her encouragement and love; Lowell Mick White, for his
unfailing support and friendship; the Krutsch family—Jill, Rick, Jordan, Adelle, and
Lauren—for being there whenever I need them; Don Heilshorn, for being the best person
I know; Mike and Cindy Heilshorn, for their support; Wendy and Joe Martin and their
canine kids; Danielle Brown; Micah Gallup; Shirley Witteborg; Howard Johnson; Dr.
Michael Staub; Dr. Valerie Rohy; Dr. Ellen Berry; and finally, my gratitude to Josh
Altherr.
vii
I would also like to acknowledge and extend gratitude to those who helped
inspire this project: Kurt Cobain, Jim Carroll, and William S. Burroughs.
Finally, thanks to Albinoni, Howard Shore, Tool, Nirvana, The Posies, The Jim
Carroll Band, The Smiths, Damien Rice, and Leonard Cohen, who provided an
inspirational soundtrack for my writing.
viii
TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page
ABSTRACT .............................................................................................................. iii
DEDICATION .......................................................................................................... v
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...................................................................................... vi
TABLE OF CONTENTS .......................................................................................... viii
CHAPTER
I INTRODUCTION: "WOULDN'T YOU? YES YOU WOULD":
POST-WORLD WAR II AMERICA AND THE RISE OF JUNKIE
LITERATURE ..................................................................................... 1

II UNMASKING THE MYTH: CONFESSIONS OF THE
UNREDEEMED DRUG ADDICT IN WILLIAM S.
BURROUGHS'S JUNKY AND ALEXANDER TROCCHI'S CAIN'S
BOOK ................................................................................................... 22

III NOT FADE AWAY: THE ABJECT IDENTITY OF THE JUNKIE
IN JIM CARROLL'S THE BASKETBALL DIARIES, ANN
MARLOWE'S HOW TO STOP TIME: HEROIN FROM A TO Z
AND LINDA YABLONSKY'S THE STORY OF JUNK ..................... 77

IV USELESS TOYS AND PRETTY BOYS: THE SOCIETY OF
MONSTROUS CONSUMPTION IN HUBERT SELBY'S
REQUIEM FOR A DREAM, BRET EASTON ELLIS'S LESS THAN
ZEROAND JOHN UPDIKE'S RABBIT AT REST ............................... 134

V CONCLUSION: A REQUIEM FOR THE DREAM .......................... 195

WORKS CITED ........................................................................................................ 199
VITA ......................................................................................................................... 212
1
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION: "WOULDN'T YOU? YES YOU WOULD": POST-WORLD
WAR II AMERICA AND THE RISE OF JUNKIE LITERATURE

The realm of addiction is not limited to drugs; addiction incorporates anything
that has the potential to cause negative consequences for the person over-indulging in the
act, whether it is one of eating, ingesting drugs, or even enmeshed in an unhealthy
relationship. According to Sadie Plant in Writing on Drugs, the "addict" as an identity
emerged in the late nineteenth century as "an individuated outsider born . . . [a] figment[]
of a modern imagination that needed to define its own normality, drawing the boundaries
around the upright, productive, and reproductive members of twentieth-century society"
(164). A "thing" for which desire existed without regulation and check, the addict soon
became mythologized as a person simply lacking the control and desire to stop
destructive behavior. Society imagined the addict as a monster, a thing that voraciously
consumed but offered nothing in return. As the nineteenth century waned and the
twentieth century began, there was little that the government could do to stop the influx
of the monstrous consumer. America enacted several laws and regulations to control the
addicts, but these only resulted in a much larger, and certainly more insidious, threat
emanating from inside society. By the time World War II ended, the country was deeply
entrenched in one of the first waves of the "War on Drugs," and addiction was no longer
being limited to repressed middle-class females who were the victims of doctor-induced,

This dissertation follows the style of PMLA.
2
or iatrogenic, practices. Instead, a new breed of addict was born in the postwar world,
and this, in turn, gave rise to a new type of literature.
The post-World War II years symbolized a new beginning for America. At the
height of global power, Americans were able to experience, for the first time, a leisurely
and luxurious existence where items, desired instead of necessary, could be purchased
by almost anyone. The postwar years ushered in what David Riesman in The Lonely
Crowd refers to as a revolution that cut Americans off from the traditional family values
that historically existed, giving way to "a whole range of social developments associated
with a shift from an age of production to an age of consumption" (6). In A Consumer's
Republic, Lizabeth Cohen agrees, noting that the aftermath of World War II provided a
fundamental shift in America's politics, economy, and culture, creating major
consequences for how Americans began to live their lives, and what they expected from
their government (8). Cohen indicates that postwar mass consumption in America was
less of a personal indulgence and more a "civic responsibility designed to provide 'full
employment and improved living standards for the rest of the nation'" (113).1
The mass consumption practiced by Americans was limited to a particular class
of citizens, the white middle class members of society. As Gary Cross explains in An
All-Consuming Century, Americans began to fulfill the dreams that the hardship of the

1 Cohen is quoting from the May 5, 1947 issue of Life magazine. The article, entitled "Family Status Must
Improve: It Should Buy More for Itself to Better the Living of Others," followed the story of Ted and
Jeanne Hemeke and their three children from their old life as that of the "workingman's family" to the new,
imagined "middle class" life, where the children are fashionably dressed, Ted wears a suit, and Jeanne has
shiny new appliances in her kitchen. The article also cites a Twentieth Century Fund projection for the
economy in 1960, which urges "a health and decency standard for everyone," requiring a "pleasant roof
over its head" and all types of consumer goods to be included in the household (Cohen 112-113).