Product Description

An uncompromising, compelling and true-to-life story of two teenagers drawn into the dangerous and destructive world of heroin addiction. This tour de force by an acclaimed and provocative writer should become a definitive teenage novel on this subject.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #15767 in Books
• Published on: 2003-02-06
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 336 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Junk is an extraordinary book, and walks a terrain that is at once terrifying and totally compelling.

Tar and Gemma are in love. Tar has reasons for running away from home that run deep and sour, whereas Gemma, with her middle-class roots firmly on show, has a deep-rooted lust for adventure. Together they explore the dark world of the streets as, together, they explore the dark world of drugs, moving quickly on from the first hit of heroin that takes them towards bliss, to the next hit that ultimately leads to despair.

Melvyn Burgess packs one hell of a punch in Junk, a book that is certainly unnerving in its honesty about two teenagers and their very different reasons for wanting to flee their families and their lives.

The narrative is simple and to the point, adding fire to the characterisation of the two main protagonists as they dive deeper into their love affair with heroin and each other. Burgess hits hard with his convincing handling of controversial subjects ranging from alcohol abuse, prostitution, teenage pregnancy and child abuse, skilfully moving the plot and the characters forward with a pace that mirrors Tar and Gemma's spiralling relationship.

Junk is a must-read for any teenager who enjoys gritty realism and a gutsy, honest approach to the books they read. But be warned, this book is not for the faint-hearted: the language is realistic, the situations are occasionally terrifying, and Burgess certainly does not glamorise any aspect of Tar and Gemma's lifestyle. Parents of teenagers should take a close look too. Age 12 and over--Susan Harrison

About the Author
Melvin Burgess was born in London in 1954. He began to train as a journalist but left after six months. He has had a variety of jobs as diverse as bricklaying and silk-screen printing. An Enterprise Allowance Scheme gave him the chance to develop his writing and his books for children are very highly regarded. Melvin lives in Lancashire.

Customer Reviews

Powerful, unflinching and never patronising
There's a reason why this book won both the Guardian Fiction Award and the Carnegie Medal and that's because it's simply brilliant - a Trainspotting for teenagers. Told in the first person mainly by teens Tar and Gemma and set in Bristol in the early 1980s, it's a very believable look at how two teenagers descend into drugs and whilst it doesn't hide from how drugs make the characters feel, it's also very good at showing what comes along with that high.

What particularly impressed me is the way that Burgess plays with the reader's sympathies. At the beginning of the book, you find yourself really sympathising with the hapless Tar who is running away from two alocholic parents - one of whom emotionally abuses him, the other physically abuses him. Gemma by contrast is shown as being quite selfish - her biggest concern is to get away from two parents whose love is suffocating and she's happy to use Tar as a means of getting away, giving him sex even though she knows that she doesn't love him. As the book progresses however, you see how drugs affect both characters and as Tar steals to fund his habit and Gemma sells her body to fund hers, you become aware of how selfish and hard Tar is becoming and how Gemma is starting to realise that she can't lie to herself much longer. It's particularly interesting to see Gemma become the stronger character towards the end of the book - she's given something to get clean for and she's determined to do it, even though it means having to return to everything she gave up. There's a good contrast here between Gemma and the apparently glamorous Lily who is unable and unwilling to make the same choices and who is revealed to be living in a pathetic state of self-delusion.

Burgess gives other characters, including Lily, her boyfriend Rob, anarchists and squatters Vonny and Richard and tobacco shop owner Skolly to give an additional perspective on Tar and Gemma's story and also to flesh out the attitudes to and affects of taking heroin. The effect is to reinforce the drastic nature of Gemma and Tar's decline and Burgess is not afraid to pull his punches - his look at Gemma, Sally's and Lily's descent into prostitution is chilling. Neither does Burgess pull his punches when it comes to showing how difficult it is to come off heroin - Tar in particular is used to reinforce what an ordeal it is and Burgess doesn't shy away from describing the physical as well as the mental affects and also how the temptation to use is always there, even when the characters have come off the junk.

It's difficult to find anything to criticise about the book - Burgess keeps his character's voices distinct, the story is always kept moving and he doesn't preach to the reader - leaving them to come to their own conclusions. The only possible nitpick that I could think to make relates to the chapters recounted by Tar's father, which draw an interesting parallel between addiction to alcohol and its effects and addiction to smack to show that father and son are closer than Tar wants to think. For me, the reference to alochol, whilst perfectly valid, seemed a little too much like laying it on although that said, the characterisation of Tar's father was very well handled.

Anyone who thinks that their children will find drugs attractive as a result of reading this book is a fool. It's genuinely horrifying and chilling and I don't think that any teenager with half a brain would come away thinking that heroin is a great life choice.

not as 'rubbish' as it sounds! oh dear, sorry about that....
'Junk' is a hard-hitting, instantly captivating, emotionally draining life experience, especially if you read it as i did, when you are about 14/15. until then i had a pretty glamourized view of drugs, and the sort of people who took them; rockstars and supermodels, i thought, it was nothing that would ever affect me. the eerie thing about then reading Junk was that i drew instant comparisons with myself and Gemma the main character of the story. not rich, not famous, not a hope in hell, gemma is 14 when she gets hooked on heroin, along with her boyfriend Tar. what strikes about the novel is how involved burgess allows you to become. he switches the narrative between characters so a different character is retelling you their story but this does not distance you from the characters, it manages to draw you in even further. this works i feel, because the mystery of a heroin addicts psyche is both enthralling and terrifying. the book will not give you a rose-tinted view of drug taking, nor will it ladel on the morbidity you might expect. it is bitterly honest and so real it can be quite heartbreaking. by the time i had finished 'junk' i was severley emotionally drained however i was not suicidal,as you might expect, mostly reflective. reading this book made me look at my life and see all the decisions i have made and will have to make for better or for worse. it alos opened my mind to the plight of drug addiction and raised my awareness. an all round fascinating and heartbreaking read.

Must read
Junk is fantastically written. Its gritty without being crude, down to earth without dissapearing below ground. Its an eye opener in more ways then one. Possibly this books greatest achievement was Melvin Burgess' ability to draw the reader into a world where nothing matters but the drugs. You live alongside the characters. Living in their, at times, confusing world where everything makes sense and yet it dosen't. This is a must read! I guarantee you that once you pick this book up you won't be able to put it down! There are so many twists and turns and you become addicted to the characters, switching between them watching incidents through each others eyes. You become unable to distinguish from the logic of this world and the logic of the world where drugs are king. What is unacceptable, becomes an everyday occurance in junk. If you do nothing else for the rest of your life read this, you won't be dissapointed!