Opium Fiend
by Steven Martin
- Percentage of approved critics who have given this book a positive review.
Critic Rating
92%
Critic Reviews: 13
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- User rating from iDreamBooks & iTunes
Reader Rating
84%
Reader Ratings: 64
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Synopsis
For readers of David Sheff's A Beautiful Boy and his son's addiction memoir, Tweak, this harrowing memoir tells the story of an American man living in Thailand who became an expert on and collector of rare nineteenth-century opium-smoking paraphernalia, only to eventually succumb to a thirty-pipe-a-day habit that ruined his life. A natural-born collector whose fascination with the old Orient and thirst for exotic adventure propelled him to live and travel in... more
About Steven Martin
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- All Critics: 13
- Positive: 13
- Negative: 0
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Kirkus Reviews | 1 Jul 2012
Ambitious and thoughtful work, successfully fusing the personal and social by raising complex questions about drugs, addiction and contested cultural narratives.
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Stuff | 10 May 2012
Although Martin doesn't advocate opium use, his memoir is no simple cautionary tale, nor was he your average backpacker junkie, such as still roam this region of cheap and plentiful drugs.
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Macleans | 22 Jun 2012
...reading Martin’s account of an unsuccessful attempt to quit in 2007 is like watching a high-speed car wreck unfold.
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ZYZZYVA. THE LAST WORD | 13 Jul 2012
What is most appealing about Martin’s story is that it’s enticingly candid and entirely plausible.
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Austin Chronicle | 23 Jul 2012
A longtime journalist and writer, he describes his meandering quest throughout China, Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam in search of the perfectly rolled opium pill with worldly humor and infinitesimal detail.
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Mail Online | 3 Oct 2012
It's one that in equal measure details both the bliss the drug induced — 'never again would sleep be so delicious; never again would dreams be so real' — and the pain of dependence and repeated attempts at withdrawal.
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JulzReads | 5 Aug 2012
This fascinating book was not only a memoir about Martin’s bizarre decent into opium addiction, but a treatise on the history of opium smoking throughout the world.
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The Daily Beast | 29 Jun 2012
But as he continues smoking with his new friends, hoping to learn the guarded secrets of these few surviving Westerners...Martin fails to notice the looming danger of this new habit—and it nearly costs him everything.
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Verbicide Magazine. | 18 Oct 2012
...is one of the most engaging personal narratives I’ve ever read, and is a tome that brings together an amusing combination of research, private experiences, and tangential action.
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Asia by the Book | 21 Sep 2012
The progression of his addiction and of his altered relationship with the world in general makes compelling reading...
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The San Francisco Bay Guardian | 26 Jun 2012
...interest in antique opium-smoking paraphernalia — a formerly obscure thing to collect, at least until Martin's own photo book, The Art of Opium Antiques, came out in 2007 — led to, perhaps inevitably, a full-blown dependence on opium itself.
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LEVIN AT LARGE | 29 Jul 2012
Martin does a great job detailing his addiction, his isolation from social life, his attempts to quit, and the psychological aftermath of kicking (at least provisionally).
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Post and Courier | 26 Aug 2012
“Opium Fiend” is an honest book with a deeply intimate portrayal of what led to his eventual addiction.
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