Iced

London. 1993. Flamingo/Harper Collins. 1st British Edition. Very Good in Wrappers. 0006546331. Paperback Original. 268 pages. paperback. Cover: Bill Robinson. keywords: African American Literature America. DESCRIPTION - This extraordinary, immensely powerful debut novel takes the form of a diary written by Cornelius Washington, Jr. - a forty-four-year-old crack addict. The diary, a passionate and gripping stream-of-consciousness confession, captures the harsh realities of Cornelius's grim present and his vivid memories of the exuberance and turmoil of his earlier life. The product of a strict and loving upwardly mobile middle-class family, Cornelius excelled in school and went to Columbia on full scholarship. Opportunity was rife for this bright, ambitious young black man, and for a time he seized it, personally and professionally. For years he dabbled with drugs, but always just for fun, until, sometime in his thirties, a friend in the music business introduced him to crack. Shell's searingly authentic account of a man's self-conscious but helpless submission to addiction documents a tragic contemporary phenomenon. As we follow, mesmerized, Cornelius's path toward the fate he most fears - becoming what he calls a 'Vampire-Zombie,' one of the lost, dead souls at the end of the addiction line - we experience not only the horrors of an addict's life but a compelling and often uplifting story of human love and loss. In this harrowing debut, Shell mixes the syncopated language of the streets with poetry from the heart to take the reader deep into the horrifying, mesmerizing world of Cornelius Washington, Jr., a 40-year-old crack addict trapped in a life that's dominated by drugs. 'A powerhouse.' - Maya Angelou. inventory #33242.…