How to Grow an Addict: A Novel - Softcover

Wright, J.A.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1631529919 ISBN 13: 9781631529917

Publisher: She Writes Press, 2015

Synopsis

HOW TO GROW AN ADDICT, a novel                                                                                 AWARDS: 2016 International Book Awards - Winner in Addiction & Recovery2016 NIEA Awards - Winner in Addiction & Recovery
2016 Independent Publisher Book Awards (IPPY) - Bronze Medal Literary Fiction 
2016 Reader's Favorite Book Awards - Silver Medal General Fiction
2015 INDIEFAB Book of the Year Awards - Honorable Mention General Fiction
2016 Kindle Book Awards - semi-finalist Literary Fiction
2015 USA Best Book Awards - Finalist General Fiction                                                                                                                                                                                                   Randall Grange has been tricked into admitting herself into a treatment center and she doesn't know why. She's not a party hound like the others in her therapy group―but then again, she knows she can't live without pills or booze.

Raised by an abusive father, a detached mother, and a loving aunt and uncle, Randall both loves and hates her life. She's awkward and a misfit. Her parents introduced her to alcohol and tranquilizers at a young age, ensuring that her teenage years would be full of bad choices, and by the time she's twenty-three years old, she's a full-blown drug addict, well acquainted with the miraculous power chemicals have to cure just about any problem she could possibly have―and she's in more trouble than she's ever known was possible.

About this title

About the Author:

J.A. Wright was raised in the Pacific Northwest and moved to New Zealand in 1990. She is the founder and director of the World Buskers Festival (1994–2014), and the New Zealand Jazz and Blues Festival (1997–present). With more than thirty years in recovery from drug addiction, she’s been crafting this novel for years.

Review:

"Raw, honest, fascinating insight into the growing-up years of a girl raised by what might be an ordinary family with ordinary flaws, and the extraordinary effects their lives have on her. J.A. Wright makes Randall so real, you want to go round and pick her up, make her a decent meal and tell her she's going to be okay."
- Michele A'Court, columnist at The Press, New Zealand Comedy Guild's 
Comedienne of the Decade 2010 and author of Stuff I Forgot to Tell my Daughter 

"J. A. Wright's book is a compelling illustration of what fertile ground families are for nurturing addiction. It's not all doom and gloom however - the story is told in a clear-eyed, unsentimental voice which, for me, made it utterly convincing. It's captivating, heartrending and uplifting."
- Morrin Rout, Former Literary Director of Chch Writers' Festival, Director of Hagley Writers' Institute

Portland Book Review - Feb 2016The review for How to Grow an Addict received 5 stars.

"J.A. Wright's How to Grow an Addict is a novelization about Randall, a young girl who is trying to navigate the testy waters of her family life and come out unscathed despite growing up in a house full of addicts and abusers. It reads like a memoir, a sort of "come clean" string of consciousness that chronicles her rise (or rather, fall) from a young girl to a young woman.
The novel is literally what the title implies, a sort of explanation of a series of factors both genetic and environmental that lead to the rise of a small, precocious, and anxious child becoming a full blown addict. Randall has an abusive father and a mother who has a hard time defending her as it is clear that she's terrified of losing him (going so far as to get breast implants in a failed attempt to stop him from sleeping around). He behaves like he hates Randall, and she chews her fingernails to nubs as a result - and has a hard time functioning in a normal world without fidgeting.
Randall is immensely likable, and though the reader begins to see her make a series of missteps as she gets older in an attempt to seek out love in "all the wrong places," the novel never takes on a judgmental tone. Randall is just a girl who's trying to navigate a very difficult situation that gets increasingly more difficult as life takes away some of her fiercest protectors and supporters. She is selfish, but only in a way that an addict is - someone who cannot see past their impulsive decisions into what the consequences may mean. It doesn't matter to her as she's just trying to get by in the only way she knows how. Her family resembles a million families, and some readers might even see some parallels between her family and their own in an alcoholic, abusive father who prioritizes a son above a daughter and creates another monster in the process; her brother who comes to hate her and lack empathy as much as her father does; her mother who is not perfect, but sad and unable to manage an angry and abusive husband, and who turns to anti-anxiety pills and alcohol as a way to cope.
The novel ends with Randall beginning to accept help from those who have to foist it onto her and ends with an uplifting message: people can make a choice to recover and do the right thing. There may be mistakes and trip-ups in the process, but it's a process worth doing. This is a great book, and even if readers don't have first-hand experience with addicts or dysfunctional families, Randall feels real-life enough to turn to when it comes to trying to deal with real-life addiction. Readers should definitely give this one a shot."- Portland Book Review

How To Grow An Addict  
 
Brilliant and an unstoppable read. This novel takes us right to the roots of a young addict's mind and vividly through the sights, sounds and smells of growing up. Wright radiates veracity from the tiniest of incidental details to the greatest of comic and tragic catastrophes. Part Charles Dickens part Charlie Brown. It is, in turn, thrilling and heart- breaking. She also pulls off the difficult trick of making one identify with the simple humanity of the main character, whether or not one has anything in common with her. Wright is never judgmental. It feels so intimate and honest that I felt privileged and humble at being confided in with Randall's story. Beautifully woven, beautifully told and deeply enthralling; as soon as I had finished the book I wanted another one . . . hmm, should I be worried? Not in this case. This is a superb and inspiring first novel, a new writer blossoms.

Peter Mielniczek - Actor-comedian and artist (February 2017)

About this edition

• Publisher: She Writes Press
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1631529919
• ISBN 13: 9781631529917
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 300