| Title | : | The Green Kangaroos |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0986059463 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780986059469 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 184 |
| Publication | : | First published August 1, 2014 |
Set in 2099, THE GREEN KANGAROOS explores the disgusting world of Perry’s addiction to atlys and the Samson family’s addiction to his sobriety.
"I write junkie fiction. I read and watch junkie fiction. Call it a lifestyle choice. I honestly didn’t think I’d discover anything new under the sun when it came to the genre. I was wrong. Green Kangaroos is the freshest, most wholly original work I’ve come across concerning the subject of addiction. Think Requiem for a Dream meets Cabin in the Woods, only funnier, fresher, and more harrowing. Potsticking makes krokodil seem like a good time. Jessica McHugh has crafted one mindfuck of a novel."
--Joe Clifford, author of Junkie Love and Lamentation
The Green Kangaroos Reviews
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It’s like Trainspotting meets A Clockwork Orange meets The Matrix, and it’s a heck of a ride! While sometimes veering into the melodramatic, and culling a moral that is nebulous at best, the world of The Green Kangaroos is vividly rich in detail, and for a scifi dystopia (set in the year 2099) you’d be hard-pressed to find a fuller setting. Plus BODY HORROR GROSSNESS. The scenes and story move at a brisk and captivating pace, and I was enthralled, from beginning to end.
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If you hang around writers long enough on social media, you're bound to bump into Jessica McHugh. Her strange and overwhelming online persona might make you think she's one of these oddballs who love to talk about writing more than they like to write. If you thought that, you couldn't be any more wrong. McHugh can talk the talk and walk the walk like nobody's business, mainly because she's got that tsunami-like originality that could destroy nations and change the geography of continents.
There were chapters where THE GREEN KANGAROOS flirted with a 5 stars ranking. Although it never quite pieces up to a masterpiece, it is a highly original, batshit crazy novel about the sweeping power that substance addiction has over an entire family. McHugh has that very rare ability of lulling you into a sense of false comfort and then break your entire understanding of the novel over a page or two and it's something I boy respect and enjoy. My only major qualm with the novel is that I thought the main character Perry was annoyingly unapologetic at times, but Jessica McHugh put him through such a savage gauntlet, he was somewhat enjoyable anyway.
One of the very enjoyable things I've read this year. -
I picked this book up on the recommendation of a fellow bookstagramer on IG. We both love Mark Matthews Milk Blood Trilogy and I had a feeling I’d like this book too. As it turns out, Matthews wrote a great introduction to this book so that was an added bonus. The Green Kangaroos is part junkie horror/ part sci-fi and it takes you on a non stop wild ride. It has everything: a great story and writing, well developed characters, sex, drugs, and lots of action. There was a twist that I didn’t see coming about 3/4 of the way in and the ending was fantastic. The only reason I’m going with 4 stars instead of 5 is that I think it could have been a little bit shorter. A few chapters kind of dragged on for too long. Otherwise I really enjoyed this one.
Note: not recommended for those easily offended by drug use, violence or violent sex. -
Its the year 2099 and we are following a man who is addicted to a drug named Atlys. The way he likes to inject is straight Into the testicles. Ouch. We also have his family who would do anything to get him clean and the rehab center they choose is very futuristic and has unorthodox ways of achieving sobriety. From the beginning you know you cant trust this rehab center.
This book is dark, gritty and bloody. The subject of drug addiction makes my stomach drop and makes me feel queasy. Here in The Green Kangroos we see inside the mind of our main character who would do anything for Atlys. The dark path he takes and the desperation that sets in is something I can't imagine happening... but it happens.
I loved the characters in the book. Even our main character who is selfish... they just hook into you. I loved all of them. Even if I hated to love them.
The way the characters score their drugs in desperate times is horrifying. Remember, its 2099. It's not what you think. It runs deep and dark.
I dont even know what else to say without spoiling anything. I want to tell you everything bc this book was that good. It kind of gave me The Matrix feel. I even told my husband about this book and now he's going to read it and he doesn't read much. Enjoy your first time reading this bc its going to take you to a whole new world. At least it did for me. -
The Green Kangaroos is a twisted romp through the junkie-filled parks and drug-addled alleys of Baltimore in the year 2099. The streets are awash with a super-drug called atlys, and some people will give up anything to feed their addiction. Others will wager all to get their loved one clean. I found it a bit like bacon flavored tin foil – quite unpleasant, but too tasty to stop chewing. It starts dark, and it gets darker, raising an acre of questions. Who can be saved? Can people accept salvation when it doesn’t fit their expectations? Is the junkie the only one to blame for addiction? McHugh pulls no punches here, so swim these polluted waters at your own peril. The squeamish reader might want to stay away from this little number. But if you’re anything like me, you’ll want to buy two copies: one to read, and another to inject straight into your nethers.
(I received The Green Kangaroos as a promotional ARC in exchange for my honest review. I loved it.) -
If you put your Philip K. Dick into your partner’s Irvine Welsh and gave it a good grinding William S. Burroughs, you might get a little close to what The Green Kangaroos gives ya. But, if you started off with an injection pure Hubert Selby Jr. in your nut-sack, you’d probably be able to get fairly close. Still, nothing quite compares to the real thing. Jessica McHugh delivers a throbbing rush that makes turning the page, to find out what happens next, addictive. She delivers the goods all the way up until the ending. At that point, you’d be willing to sell your most tender parts just to get another fix.
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A drug-fueled Sci-fi love story with roots of the Matrix or Ghost in the Machine. Imagine if you could send the addict you love and want to get better into dream-state reality and maybe even join them. A brainiac study that could only go wrong if...
McHugh turns the tables with etiquette portions of addicts served in a high-end restaurant, drugs that fuse sexual organs into ripe hard fruit—-ready to burst, and a family watching one stubborn man fall into a world of drugs and doesn’t want to leave.
Get your iron balls rolling and read this book! -
My first encounter with the writing of Jessica McHugh showed me an inventive horror short story called Food For Thought. Turns out, that’s just a tiny part of the McHughniverse. There’s also Pins, a suspenseful dark thriller involving strip clubs and bowling alleys. There’s the young adult mystery/thriller, Rabbits in the Garden. There’s her trip into the world of steampunk, The Maiden Voyage. And in August, she’ll be dropping a sci-fi mind-melting experience of Philip K. Dick proportions, The Green Kangaroos. Be prepared.
From the very first pages, you can already tell this might just be one of those experiences. You know the ones I mean, the ones where you feel like you need a good hot shower afterwards to clean the filth away. Right from the start, you find yourself thrown into the life of a down and out junkie named Perry Samson. He’s addicted to a drug called atlys, and from the first sentence of the first chapter, you know exactly how he prefers it: injected straight into the testicles. Yep, that is how The Green Kangaroos starts, in your face and nasty. And so it goes, as we go on a first person journey with Perry as he tries to score another hit, spies on his ex-wife, and contemplates “potsticking,” a new procedure where people sell chunks of flesh in exchange for drugs, flesh that is later eaten as a delicacy by the rich and powerful. The world McHugh creates is dirty, stinky, and vile, and we can’t wait to escape it.
How we might find this escape, however, is a whole other issue. Because by about the fourth chapter, we realize we aren’t completely sure of what is real and what is in “our” heads. We go from seeing the world through the eyes of Perry to watching from afar, as it turns out our protagonist is a new patient at the Sunny Daye Institute, a drug rehabilitation facility that boasts a 100% success rate. With a special virtual reality program, and with the help of the patient’s loved ones, they are able to put the addict through a series of “tests” in order to help get them off the bad stuff. The facility is run by Doctors Alan and Marla Daye, head scientist Doctor Jeremiah Carter, who also created the Institute, and Emily, an operating system that appears on the computer monitors throughout the complex and also appears to have human emotions. But how would what is essentially a robot have feelings? Hmmm…
The Green Kangaroos is a real head trip as we go back and forth from the virtual world in which Perry doesn’t seem to be getting any better, often putting drugs in front of family and friends, and then back into the real world, where things are also not quite what they first seemed. Is it possible that the Institute could really cure 100% of its patients? It seems unrealistic, but if not, what happens to the “failures?” We soon learn the truth, and it just makes our experience that much more horrifying. It all results in one of those “if I say too much, I might give away more than I intend to” situations, so I highly recommend you take the journey for yourself. It’s a wild one, and it’s well worth it.
Jessica McHugh manages to create a world that resembles our own just enough to give a false sense of security while at the same time reminding us of some of our worst nightmares (memories enabled by the dark, creepy cover art by George C. Cotronis). As I mentioned before, it has a definite Philip K. Dick feel to it, but is entirely an original creation. And while it deals with fictionalized horrors, such as the potsticking, it also deals with addiction in a very real way. Sure, the extremes Perry and others go to aren’t real (not yet, anyway), but they are symbolic of the all too real daily struggles of an addict. The giving up, the feeling of victimization, the loss of reality (in this book, something that seems to happen regularly), the re-prioritizing based on perceived needs and wants versus real needs. And in the end, after all is said and done, we find ourselves face to face with similar ethical struggles as we had with the Ludovico treatment in Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange – is the “patient” truly cured, or did we just convince ourselves that they were in order to feel better ourselves? -
Set in drug infested Baltimore, Perry Samson battles his addiction and his demons. Samson has graduated to the strongest drug available "Atlys". The drug is so impossibly addictive society has given up the thin shred of hope for recovery that existed for those addicted. Without the burden of recovery for Atlys addicts society has segregated users to the parks of the city. Not only has society given up on Perry, his family and friends have too. With one exception, his sister. Perry's life continues to spiral out of control until his sister intervenes. The lines between reality and drug fueled delusions become blurred beyond recognition when Perry's sister puts him in a radical new treatment that garuntees 100% success. That is 100% recovery for those that survive. Will Perry survive? Does he love drugs more than he loves his family?
Green Kangaroos is an awesome sci-fi noir that pierces right to the heart of the addicts plight. There is some great social commentary but there is also a great story about family and how addiction complicates relationships with friends and family.
Jessica Mchugh holds nothing back in Green Kangaroos and I love her for it. The book is brutal and violent at times but so is the reality of an addict. I work with homeless addicts in Washington DC and sanitizing their lives only cheapens their struggle. If you like fast paced science fiction read Green Kangaroos. I am definitely a certified Mchugh fan and I can't wait to see what she has coming up next! -
A Dirty High
GREEN KANGAROOS is a raw and deliberate trip leaving nothing sacred. Jessica McHugh finds the perfect subject to flay open the theme of morality, balancing drug addiction and its inherent elements of sex, violence, and manipulation. The setting is a dystopian future reminiscent of Phillip Dick, William Burroughs, and William Gibson. The hard allegory used to portray an addict’s willingness to sacrifice for the next high is insane and yet believable enough to make each “potsticking” scene gut wrenching.
Ms. McHugh’s command of voice gives life to her characters, and her writing overall is superb, making it very easy to read and damn hard to put down. There is more than enough action and violence to keep the adrenalin junkie satiated, but the depth of the theme with all of its complex facets will leave you lost in troubling thought long after the story ends.
This is the first book I’ve read from Jessica McHugh, and immediately after finishing preordered her upcoming new release. Consider her writing a new addiction. -
A jarring, fresh look at addiction and the lengths that junkies will go to get high, and the extremes their families will go to to get their loved ones clean.
It is 2099, and Perry Samson is addicted to atlys, which could be symbolic of any drug, honestly. Atlys junkies will do anything for a hit, including selling their flesh. McHugh steps into the future of addiction with unflinching brutality, bringing to life characters that will do anything for their next hit, and immersing the reader in a world that is not beautiful, but poignant in its honesty. -
No more potstickers for me!
This story was awesome! Absolutely insane, Jessica tells a whopper of a tale, tons of OMG and WTF! Just the way I like it. I couldn't ask for anything more. Plus, Jessica is awesome IRL, so yeah, this was an epic experience!
5/5 Skulls
💀💀💀💀💀 -
I went into this book with high expectations, and yet, I did not know what to expect. That could have been an unfair place to start. Instead, all my expectations were greatly exceeded. This book was different, interesting, thoroughly enjoyable, and left me wanting more. I highly recommend it.
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THE GREEN KANGAROOS
by Jessica McHugh
A book review by weird speculative fiction author Ted Fauster
What if junkies really are speaking to ghosts?
What if being an addict isn't nearly as horrible as we often make it out to be? What if true happiness is something that can't ever be forced upon a person?
In McHugh's twisted speculative fiction tale of addiction and loss, the drug-addled Perry Samson lives and breathes for atlys, a drug so rich in its addictive properties it is served up laced into the very flesh of its donors at the Kum Den Smokehouse, an old whorehouse turned five-star restaurant in the futuristic Patterson Park of Baltimore. With an older brother already dead from drug use, atlys has destroyed not only Samson's life but the lives of all remaining family members.
But... has it?
There's a surprising amount of heart in this novel that really begins to radiate toward the end. The pacing is masterful, with an at-first jolting but expediently tuned shift not only in perspective but point of view that works to drag you deep into depravity, kicking and screaming, straight down the hell chute into Perry's repulsive world. It's necessary. This works perfectly to cement the mind of the reader in a location where it truly needs to be to digest what is about to come.
Ribbons of Burroughs and Dick are blended into the base flavor of this novel, with no punches pulled. Those faint of heart or weak in the gut may want to give this one a pass. You won't find any apologies here. Even hardcore aficionados of weird speculative fiction will find themselves tenting their eyebrows from time to time. Perry's world is a very dark and dangerous place. But it's nothing compared to the dysfunction within his family.
Therein lies the dark heart of this tale, deeply woven within the woolen fabric of addiction. Whose fault is it? And to what lengths should we go to "help cure" someone clearly not interested in being rescued?
I became immersed in the language, reveled in being led down dark alleyways and through one destitute setting after another, peeling back the scabs. This is especially powerful when told via the point of view of Perry.
[...God, the state of him. His body is skeletal, full of scarred divots, but his face is the worst. His chin is less prominent, and his cheeks are completely gone. Without fat in his face, it's no more than sallow bone. I consider the possibility that he's dead. After all, it wouldn't be my first corpse conversation of the day....]
But it's the heartfelt moments that ground you in the harsh reality of our hero's predicament, that really make you question what you've been told and taught, the narrative forced down all our throats.
[...The good things before my addiction have either been erased by drug use or were never there in the first place. There were no family trips, no school functions she chaperoned. She made no costumes and baked no cookies. She never helped me learn my lines for school plays....]
In particular, Perry's sister (Nadine), who is still friends with his ex, seems to have the deepest hold.
[..."I don't want to see you anymore, Perry. Neither do Mom, Dad or Serena. We're ready to write you off as another loss....]
Such is the coarse psychology of this book. Viewed from both sides, the path to a "cure" becomes a rapidly forking network of heavily weighted decisions.
The most refreshing aspect to THE GREEN KANGAROOS (I won't give away the meaning) is the way McHugh unapologetically turns the table on who's to blame. Is it the addict causing all the suffering in the world? Or should the ones who supposedly love them shoulder more of the blame?
Hell, is anyone to blame?
This book will keep you turning the pages. It's also full of fiendish twists, and plenty of appropriately developed sci-fi and tech to get your weird glands salivating. Looking forward to the sequel. -
I really enjoyed this book, but I have to admit that I don't know anyone I would recommend it to. It is a HARSH book, full of violence, sex, drug use and graphic elements which are extremely difficult to read without revulsion. In the end, though, the book was good. It told an excellent story, the characters are interesting and compelling (though not necessarily sympathetic) and I did enjoy it.
I just don't know who to tell about it.
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Full Review
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Based on a promotional eBook received from NetGalley in exchange for a review.
The Green Kangaroos
Written by Jessica McHugh
Overall Rating: 3.5/5
Plot: 4
Characters: 4
Writing: 3
The Green Kangaroos is set in a speculative near-future in which televisions exist on every corner and broadcast a set material based on where you live. A class system has come more strongly into play in the United States and Baltimore is rife with drugs and degradation. A drug called Atlys has come into the forefront and its use is encouraged by a cultural phenomenon called "potsticking" in which active Atlys users sell bits of their flesh in return for money and drugs to restaurants, which in turn sell them for the consumption of the extremely rich.
Perry Sampson is one of these drug users, fallen from a middle-class family in the wake of his older brother's OD and his parents' perceived neglect. His little sister hopes to rehabilitate him, to regain the relationship with her brother she used to have, but Perry has resisted those attempts for years. When his sister catches wind of a new treatment with advertised 100% success rates, Perry is in for a wild ride beyond even his own reality with not only his own life on the line, but that of his entire family.
I really loved this book, but it was a hard book to read. It was graphically violent, rife with strong language and sexual imagery, and tackled some deeply disturbing cultural taboos. Due to the nature of the book, these elements were necessary and even in keeping with character and world, but it didn't make it any easier to read without wanting to put the book down. It is for these elements that it receives such a low score for me. I would love to recommend it for the story, for the characters, and for the world they live in, but most of my readers would be put off by the graphic and taboo elements. For those that aren't, though, it's a fantastic read with compelling characters (I love Emily in particular) and a twisted ending. -
I put this down several times because the opening was all about drugs and sex, but then I took another look at the reviews and decided to read more and I am so glad that I did. This is dark fiction at its best; it gives you glimpses in the darkness of addition and human nature. The first part of the book was difficult for me to read, because of the amount of darkness, addicts are selling body parts to support their habits and anything else they can to get the drug atlys. Perry is not a likeable character and the author has done a great job at making us see how terrible he is, but his sister and parents are determined to save him. They look into a radical medical treatment and the second half of the book deals with his treatment. Will Perry accept the help and beat his dependence on this awful substance or will he choose to continue using after he’s released? Beating it will be hard, but to continue to using atlys would lead to a prolonged death as he uses whatever means necessary to get the drug.
While I thought that the book was very well written, the author has done a great job in building not only Perry but also the secondary characters, the lengths that addicts will go to get their drug(s) and the struggle that the family as they attempt to save him; ultimately the book was too dark for me and not something that I would want to read again.
3.5/5 STARS**I want to thank the author and/or publisher for providing a copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review; all opinions are mine.** -
Just cause you got the monkey off your back doesn't mean the circus has left town. - George Carlin
This is the first book of Jessica McHugh's that I've read. What a whiz bang outrageous journey she took me on!
The first part of the book (also known to me, at least, as BR - Before Rehab) I really liked, although I'm not sure "liked" is the right word. It was a raw in-your-face journey to 2099 Baltimore and into the life of 27 year-old Perry, who is insanely addicted to the drug atlys. To me atlys sounds like a cross between Ecstasy and heroin, except for the best high you inject it into your nether regions. Ouch!
Author McHugh takes us to the darkest sides of addiction and explores a future where people sell off parts of their bodies to get their next fix - a particularly gruesome practice called potsticking.
The last part of the book didn't affect me as viscerally as the first part but even so, the entire book is a dark, compelling look at a deranged future time.
NOTE: I received this book from Perpetual Motion Machine Publishing through Net Galley in exchange for my honest review. -
I got a copy of Green Kangeroos from Netgalley and it's an almost perfect book that faltered a bit at the end. Fans of dark fiction will love this, but as dark as it is it also gives you a glimpse into the dark side of human nature and even addiction. We all know how devastating addiction is and McHugh doesn't shy away from that darkness or even sugar coat it. Addicts are selfish and Perry is not a likable character and that is the strongest aspect of the novel. Will he choose a drug free existence?
It's a well written novel except for the ending. That was where the book fell apart for me. I was intrigued with Perry and the lows that he plummets but it seems as if the conclusion was just kind of slapped on to kind of give readers a glimmer of hope when there really shouldn't be. I like that Perry is flawed and hopeless. Junkie fiction isn't supposed to have happy endings.
The Green Kangaroos experiments with a variety of genres and they all add depth to the arc of the novel. It's more than just a book about addiction and that is where the appeal lies. It's not an easy read, but it should be read and quite often. -
My new favorite science fiction story. My new favorite junkie story. How's that? Sci-Fi Junkie? It takes place on the brink of the 22nd century's head popping up and tells of a guy named Perry Samson whose family and ex want to help get cleaned up from his addiction to a drug called atlys. This book has it all. A great story line, dope, raunchy sex, alternate/digitally constructed realities, whores, mad doctors, and bad people of almost every stripe. It also includes the wonderful line "Considering crucifixion's fecal effects, I guess it makes sense that the Body of Christ tastes like shit." I mean, fuck. How can you go wrong? This is the first book I have read by Jessica McHugh and I will be reading more. Buy it. Read it. Love it.
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I don't think I have ever read or ever will read anything so strange.....
Perry Samson is addicted to atlys, a drug he injects straight into his testicles!
This book takes you into his mind (which is the weirdest place...ever!) as his family and Dr Carter try to help him come off the drug.
Excellent! -
I recently finished reading THE GREEN KANGAROOS by Jessica McHugh, and I highly recommend the read if you haven't picked up a copy yet.
It reminded me of a science fiction version of one of Ellen Hopkin's books, and as someone who is a fan of medical horror and books about addiction and psychological chaos, I enjoyed this one immensely. -
With a plot tapped into addiction and attempts at recovery, The Green Kangaroos is an intense, inventive look into selfishness at its most extreme, most ugly. Like A Clockwork Orange it is less about the horror of the deviant and more about the horrors perpetrated by those trying to correct the deviancy. The year is 2099 and Perry Samson is unapologetically addicted to atlys, a powerful drug that is most potently euphoric with injection straight into the sexual organs, in Perry's case the testicles. Even as Perry steps deeper into self-destructive depravity to attain fixes of atlys-induced happiness, his younger sister (with the help of their parents) pursues a radical recovery treatment for Perry in the undying hope that her brother can be reformed.
Works dealing with the powerful gravity of addiction and the dangers that it can bring directly to the addict or indirectly to friends, family, even strangers aren't uncommon. What sets apart McHugh's novel is the consideration that the agendas of those trying to cure the addict may be just as defined by destructively addictive tendencies, to a selfishness just as violent. Perry is generally unlikable, crass, and utterly selfish. Yet, he possesses a strong, honest self-perception. Atlys is a drug that makes him feel unbelievably happy, that fuels desires and centers him, regardless of whether it is helping or hurting him. Perry understands his predicament, that using this aptly named drug as a means of navigating through his existence is ultimately poisonous and destructive. He is fully aware that his need is pushing him further into situations he wouldn't have considered before - including selling his flesh literally ('potsticking') and figuratively (prostitution) to fund some more of the drug. While he regularly lies to others to suit his desires, never does Perry lie to himself.
In contrast are the members of Perry's family, particularly his little sister Nadine. Nadine is shown as firmly committed to the idea of saving her brother, but the matter of her motivations is less clear. She seeks out a new treatment option that to any rational person would be clearly too-good-to-be-true. Despite having a sense of this deep down, Nadine (and the parents) lie to themselves with the righteousness of their hopes and goals, and ignore any sense of dangers. They avoid asking questions or fully recognizing their predicament (or Perry's) in the care of the doctors who run the recovery program. As the novel progresses it becomes increasingly clear that Nadine is not really looking for Perry's salvation, but rather is pursuing her own selfish desires to have a 'normal', non-addict brother. She will lie to herself, risk herself and others to attain this state of happiness. Not wanting to reveal too much of the plot, the main doctor at the treatment facility has gone through the similar extremes of an addiction to the recovery process at the cost of anything, including the bodies of those he seeks to help.
McHugh's The Green Kangaroos is thus a really perceptive and profound novel despite its short length and the gritty crassness of its subjects. The futuristic setting and speculative aspects of the recovery program are well imagined and integrated into the plot. At first given its setting in 2099 I wanted to see more of what general society was like, how it was different other than the bits of underworld jargon and environment that McHugh shows. But soon I realized the tight limitation of revealing this universe to Perry's world and the institution of recovery help keep the focus of the novel intense, tight.
The language is certainly not something that will be to everyone's taste. It is frequently vulgar and visceral in its depictions of sex and drugs in the underbelly of society. Yet, this shouldn't be surprising for the topic or style of McHugh and this novel's setting. In terms of the writing, there were a few instances where dialogue in particular seemed forced, the only critique to this that I can reasonably perceive. At first some of the similes feel too absurd, too much like provoking for reaction. However, I quickly realized these occur in Perry's first person point of view chapters, and he is simply that kind of guy. McHugh's writing definitely shines though in her descriptive passages. You can tell she has a love for words, and I most love the playfulness of her prose. This is really what drew me to her work originally. For instance, right from the start with the prologue, she plays on the word 'junk' in its multiple meanings and then parallels that at the start of chapter one with our introduction to Perry. McHugh's imagination is strong and energetic, and she constructs a story well here from the words on up to the plot and themes. I'll look forward to reading more, even when it is a genre or style that isn't at the top of my usual reading tastes. -
When you're trapped in the cycle of addiction, where drugs transcend a good time and dominate your life, your existence, where every action you takes is predicated on scoring the next bag, the next hit, the next taste, everything in your life--indeed your life itself transforms, in a sense, into your periphery, there's nothing you won't do to score. In chasing his drug of choice, the fictional atlys, Perry Samson does the unthinkable: he sells chunks of his flesh. It's a desperate move, one frowned on by even the lowliest of drug addicts. In the world of The Green Kangaroos by Jessica McHugh, those who sell their meat--to an upscale restaurant of all places--are viewed as the lowliest of lows, even by those in the grip of atlys addiction. Set in the waning years of the 21st century, The Green Kangaroos starts as a classic drug novel. But it quickly descends into a Philip K. Dicksian landscape of questionable or ambiguous reality.
On reading the opening chapter, one thing strikes you: the voice. This is a narrator so fully realized that you, at times, forget it's a work of fiction. His attitude, his drive, his personal lexicon, his overwhelming desire to court, and succumb to, his addiction, feels plucked from the pages of a memoir. Nothing is off limits here; no taboos are too sacred to avoid. Drugs and violence, sex and desire--all consume the Perry, who alternates between these desires and his drive to score the next hit. It's an unflinching look at the depths and depravities concomitant to drug addiction.
But this isn't simply a Fear & Loathing-esque tale of excess; instead, it's a morality play, an existential dirge, and, most importantly, a family drama. Perry's relationship to his ex-wife and, crucially, his sister, grounds the novel in a pathos missing from some drug novels.
Then there are the dicksian elements. Without giving too much away, or spoiling several big reveals, I'll just say that this is, in part a science fiction novel dealing with questions of reality and the ethics of advanced medical and scientific technology.
Equal parts drug novel, dystopian fiction, science fiction, and meditations on family and reality, The Green Kangaroos is a novel that grabs you from the opening paragraph and doesn't let go until it races toward the climax. It's a masterful novel that isn't without it's flaws: for me, the denouement was a little too protracted, and the epilogue inspired mixed feelings. On reading it, I felt misgivings, as if it was tacked on simply for the sake of creating a twist ending; but the more I thought about it, the more it occurred to me that it was a commentary on the nature of drug addiction and the personality types susceptible to slipping into that spiral.
Jessica McHugh is one of the more exciting writers working today. Her confidence, her voice, her ability to create compelling characters and worlds, and her embrace of the offensive, grotesque, and obscene makes her a rare writer these days, one willing to tackle any subject as honestly as possible.
Overall, it's a fantastic novel. -
This book is so lucky that it has such good reviews on here, otherwise I would've put it down after the first chapter. It opens with a character whose only interests are sex and drugs. Almost everything he says comes back to those two things. Not endearing at all.
But then.
Well, then, the story zooms out from him and you see the bigger picture. And it's pretty terrifying. The way that the story unfolds is great; the chapters alternating in Perry's drugged up haze, and the scenes with his family, the doctor trying to get him clean, and the sentient computer program who, quite frankly, is the most likeable character in the whole book, expand the world and make things far more interesting.
By the end I still didn't care one whit about Perry and his addiction, but the novel itself rewards the reader with a culmination of the horror that grows throughout by taking the story to some pretty dark places. So it's worth the read. It was awkward sometimes, particularly in the way things wrapped up so nicely, when you expect them to end in a splatter of blood and viscera, but it's not a bad ending. -
This mindfuck of a novel takes a rather fresh look at the issue of addiction and intervention. The focus of the story is Perry Samson, a young man living in the year 2099 and hopelessly addicted to the drug atlys. His favorite method of ingestion is a hypodermic of raw liquid atlas directly to the testicles. Perry's life seems to be dreary and disgusting, but he is happy being an addict. His happiness will be severely threatened when his family decides to take him to a new and revolutionary type of rehab.
Not only is this a story about addiction, sibling love and rivalry, and a killer "middle child" study, but it also (as I've found is often the case with Ms. McHugh's work) introduces some ideas and scenarios that are, to say the least, disconcerting and often disturbing, but always fascinating as well. Plus there's the bonus fact that it contains frequent use of the term "cuntcutter." -
The Green Kangaroos is a twisted journey through the addiction of Perry Samson and what he is willing to do just for a little taste of artificial happiness. We also follow Perry's sister, Nadine through her own addiction of saving Perry. It has dark moments and worse ones than that. Occasionally, it borders on preachiness. But anyone who has loved anything or been in love with someone who loves something, will understand the need for this. It's a roller coaster ride through the gritty underside of addiction. How low people don't care about going to feed their addiction. It's also an explanation of why addicts are addicts...at least one of them.
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Grotesque cyberpunk junkie fiction about a VR treatment programme for extreme future-heroin addicts. McHugh's future dystopian Baltimore is a grisly hellscape of mutilation and desperate misery, seen through the eyes of an addict who may be beyond help. There are some pulpy extremes and clichés that she plays around with, which can be fun or tiresome depending on the scenes built around them, but I was thoroughly entertained throughout. The ending, and the "bonus" epilogue, did a lot to endear me to this book despite its flaws, as I was genuinely surprised by some of the conclusions. Not for the faint of heart, but if you can stomach it, worth reading for sure.
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McHugh's stark departure from her Darla Decker series offers a solid world of sex and drugs in a terrifying near future. Imagine the Philip K Dick's Scanner Darkly if written by a very high, cannibal Noam Chompsky fighting the good fight against class warfare.
Definitely recommend!
