Heathenish by Kelby Losack

HeathenishHeathenish by Kelby Losack
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

You quickly get the idea that this is a personal book to the author as his obscured visage takes up the front cover. This one falls between, his kindred spirit, J. David Osborne's Black Gum and Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting. Our unnamed narrator has "done too much, much too young" and finds himself divorced with three kids at the age of 20. Having moved back home, he starts to sample the life he seems to have missed out on with no substance safe from being swallowed, snorted or at times, injected as he pushes himself further to oblivion.

This is an autobiographical novel, but it frees itself from judgements and any type of woe-is-me writing instead focussing on the narrator and the life he builds for himself beyond his wife and children. There are shady deals, weird conversations, freestyle rapping, and a collection of outsiders and fellow drugged out wastrels, but it is a book that runs the gamut of emotions. It's a novel that shows great heart when it ekes out any hope of redemption for our protagonist.

The difficult thing to know is how much is true, but even if half the drugs mentioned were imbibed then it appears a tough and mind-altering experience. It's far from the most important thing about the book, but you always wonder. This is clearly a book that purged some demons for Losack and it just happens to be very entertaining and sums up the human experience in some ways especially in the way we as people tend to gloss over our problems and keep moving forward in routines that can be difficult to get out of, no matter how damaging.


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