I am glad I read this book alongside listening to the Audiobook of Dopesick. I couldn't have asked for a better fiction/nonfiction pairing about the consequences of heroin addiction. This is a dark story and I personally found Selby's stream-of-conscious prose and his play with grammar entertaining. The surface level of this story is about the ramifications of heroin use, particularly how the addicts constant quest to avoid dopesickness really constricts their vision of the future and, therefore, their dreams. There is also a condemnation of the 'American Dream' interpreted as the never-ending rat-race to accumulate material possessions because it nurtures vices rather than virtues: greediness, selfishness, hatred, fear....

If you enjoy Cormac McCarthy of Tom Wolfe, you should enjoy Selby's writing style.