Nice Boy - Softcover

Veltri, George

3.91

11 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0872863026 ISBN 13: 9780872863026

Publisher: City Lights Publishers, 2001

View all copies of this ISBN edition:

Nice Boy is as fast-paced and intoxicating as the drugs that dominate the lives of its characters. Excitement and unexpected complications enter Gregory's life as he begins to move away from his stable working-class neighborhood in Queens and into the hazardous underbelly of New York street life.

Through a series of savage and humorous vignettes, Veltri creates the unforgettable pageant of Gregory's large Italian-American family, his friends, addicts, hustlers, sadistic cops, and the denizens of rehab.

This is not the story of a young drug addict trying to kick heroin, but is an incantatory tale about ordinary people in the urban world, some who suffer and die and some who survive.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly:

From the opening chapter about a drug user named Dead-Phily, this startling debut is a highly personal and localized account of life as a junkie. What is so extraordinary about the life of narrator Gregory is not that it is unusual, but that it is so very typical. He grew up in an Italian-American neighborhood in Ozone Park, Queens, with aunts and uncles who pinched his fat cheeks and a mother who supplied him with meatballs and clothes purchased a few sizes too large so that they'd fit later. Of his extra-large communion suit his sister now sighs, "What a shame that kid had to go around with such a big suit. No wonder he went on drugs." Gregory's voice is effectively choppy, with poor grammar and incomplete sentences. He unflinchingly chronicles his development from recreational drug user ("Somewhere around the middle of the sixties, when I was a flowering adolescent, drugs were good. Like fun.") to hard-core junkie ("Shooting drugs is more economical than sniffing drugs. Only need about half as much. Less wasted. Faster acting."). This is arranged in vaguely chronological order, but sometimes old memories slip in. Despite the fact that a junkie's life is highly repetitive, Veltri keeps things creative by describing Gregory's relationships with various people, including his equally addicted girlfriend; Chef-Boy-Arty, who got his nickname from eating canned food; and another druggie named DeWayne, who overdoses in his bedroom. Although Gregory eventually goes into recovery, this is no morality tale, just straightforward, jittery exposition, which in a twelve-step world works remarkably well.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.