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The powerHouse Arena is pleased to invite you to a reading and discussion of: Pill Head by Joshua Lyon America Anonymous by Benoit Denizet-Lewis Dear Diary by Lesley Arfin Thursday, September 24, 2009, 7–9PM The powerHouse Arena 37 Main Street, Brooklyn For more information: (718) 666-3049 RSVP: rsvp@powerhousearena.com Three young journalists discuss America's struggles with addiction—and their own. Joshua Lyon first tried Vicodin on an assignment for Jane magazine, and it took him all the way from rock bottom to rehab. In Pill Head, he brings his journalist's eye to his own first-hand experience of drug addiction. In America Anonymous, Benoit Denizet-Lewis, a New York Times Magazine contributor, examines our country's experience of addiction through eight reported stories and his own. Lesley Arfin's Dear Diary, based on her column in Vice Magazine, looks back from the present into her past diary entries and examines her addiction to heroin, in an attempt to figure out what it was all about. All three bring their expertise and their own unique, experienced perspective to this discussion of addiction. 
It's one thing to want to give up an addiction to painkillers. It is quite another to succeed. In Pill Head: The Secret Life of a Painkiller Addict, Joshua Lyon exposes the devastating epidemic of prescription painkiller abuse while laying bare his own addiction. The Internet has made accessing prescription painkillers all too easy. When Lyon first bought Vicodin online with ease for an assignment at Jane magazine, he found himself becoming dependent on them. Rather than disposing of the pills after the assignment as per his editor's instructions, he gave in to his curiosity and fell in love. Pill Head is the story of how he came to terms with painful truths and how he has begun to rebuild a life after rehab. Joshua Lyon was not alone in his addiction. Interpolating memoir segments between interviews with experts and stories of Generation Rx abusers, he dares to blow open the cultural phenomenon of America's newest pill-popping generation. From first encounter to detox, Lyon is as real as it gets. In Pill Head, he shares his journey through chaos, loss, and the gradual transformation toward a new life. Bringing together an addict's mind and a journalist's eye, his tenacious and candid memoir will resonate with anyone who is struggling with chemical dependence and looking for the courage and strength to heal. 
In America Anonymous: Eight Addicts in Search of a Life, New York Times Magazine contributing writer Benoit Denizet-Lewis refracts our inadequately understood national culture of addiction and recovery through the prism of eight men and women's experiences as they struggle with different manifestations of addiction. With dependencies ranging from alcohol and drugs to sex, food, and shoplifting, the addicts Denizet-Lewis follows for nearly three years come from all walks of life—a Harlem grandmother, a suburban Jewish housewife, a bisexual bodybuilder, a Florida retiree, a working class heroin addict from South Boston—but they share a commonality that has threatened to destroy them. As he intimately tracks these addicts' lives, documenting their progress and lapses as they search for lasting sobriety, this award-winning journalist also adds a highly personal element to his investigation by candidly revealing his own sexual addiction. While he ends this intensive study of addiction with hope, Denizet-Lewis acknowledges that writing America Anonymous has further complicated addiction in his eyes. There are no easy answers. Yet this intensive, unvarnished journey into the heart of addiction offers invaluable lessons in the stories of these eight struggling addicts, who have much to teach us about addiction and recovery. It is the first step, Denizet-Lewis says, in a much-needed national movement to destigmatize addiction, a movement that requires people in recovery to come together and speak out, to come out of the closet as people in recovery. As one of the addicts in the book says, "It's time to flip the switch." 
Dear Diary is a collection of more than 10 years of diary entries based on the hugely popular monthly feature in Vice Magazine, juxtaposed against present-day updates that take us from Lesley Arfin's middle school years in the early 90s to her clean and sober twenty something years in New York City. When she wrote about Cynthia Karacas (it's funny how you remember everyone's first and last name like that) making her feel "retarded" back in 10th grade, the world was a dark, lonely place and she could see no light at the end of the tunnel. When she discovered heroin, things got even worse. Today, with the perspective that only rock bottom can give you, Lesley looks back on the apocalypse that was adolescence and asks, "What the hell was I talking about?" Lesley's hilarious updates remind us how heavy it all seemed back then and how irrelevant it all really is in the face of adulthood. When she digs up all her old friends and enemies to get their take on each entry, a whole new perspective is added. Some are eager to apologize, while others are still mad because, "Let's face it, you were a loser." No matter whom she talks to about the days when we all discovered sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll, one thing is abundantly clear: we were ridiculous. About Joshua Lyon: Joshua Lyon is a journalist who has worked for several major publications, including Interview, Condé Nast Traveler, V Life, and Jane. He has also contributed to New York, Out, Vice, and Page Six magazines. Joshua lives in Brooklyn. This is his first book. About Benoit Denizet-Lewis: Benoit Denizet-Lewis is an award-winning contributing writer at The New York Times Magazine. Formerly a senior writer at Boston Magazine and staff writer at the San Francisco Chronicle, Denizet-Lewis' work has also appeared in Details, ESPN the Magazine, Spin, Out, Salon, and others, and he has taught magazine and nonfiction writing at Tufts, Emerson College, and Northeastern University. A graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, he lives in Boston. About Lesley Arfin: Dear Diary is currently optioned by MTV Networks and Lesley is working on getting her drug/alcohol counseling license. She also writes a column for the Australian fashion magazine Russh. jeff@powerhousearena.com | |
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powerHouse Books | powerHouse Arena 37 Main St. Brooklyn, NY 11201 1(718)666-3049 For more information, please contact: Press, Craig Cohen, Executive Publisher Sales, Wes Del Val, Sales Director Arena, Customer Information and Event Inquiries © Copyright 2009 powerHouse Arena |