Mother of a drug addict

Press, 1 February 1986, Page 20

Mother of a drug addict

The Mother of David S. By Yvonne Keuls. Translated by J. W. Arriens. Souvenir Press, 1985. 225 pp. $24.95. (Reviewed by Ralf Unger) The mother of a drug addict describes, in novel form, her feelings and development from his teaching. She learns that she should let him rot in his own filth, and simultaneously allow him a chance to become independent in his self-chosen situation, rather than act as if they were still in the past when he was a baby and child, and when his transgressions could be immediately forgiven. The mother becomes painfully aware of the lying and cheating person that a heroin user becomes, when only the drug and its effects are of Importance, and when friendship and family are only there to be used. Set in the Netherlands the situation is typical of many parts of the Western world and the mother gradually becomes involved with support groups for the families of addicts and starts a movement in Amsterdam. While the parents learn to continue with their own lives, in spite of the constant black j shadow from their children’s behaviour, the

sons and daughters continue to destroy property, other people, and themselves. There is little hope expressed of any possible “cure,” but simply a spiralling downward course into eventual insanity or death by suicide. This could be a most useful benchbook for parents. and relatives who find themselves floundering hopelessly in such a situation, except that it is very poorly written. It is impossible to say whether this is from’a pedestrian translation, or is: in the original, but the book tries to steer a middle course between a didactic text and a realistic novel, and does not attain either. Nevertheless, within these limitations, it is written by one who has obviously been closely involved in the extended drug culture with its intense emotional tearing and cutting, and the book conveys some of the guilt in parents that has to be dealt with before they can separate themselves from their dependants. The centering upon the mother, rather than the addict, is an unusual approach, but perhaps it would take a ghost-writer to be able to wrap the novel in a more appealing way than one who still has strong battles going on inside her.