Some people have sneered at Bill Clegg’s addiction memoir because Clegg, a New York literary agent, was wealthy during the time he was a crackhead. This completely misses the point. If anything, wealthy crack addicts are more hardcore than broke ones, because they have more money to spend on crack. With large supplies of money, the rich crack addict stays longer at rock bottom. More importantly, Clegg has written a very, very good book.

We first see him towards the end of a typical crack binge deep into his addiction. ‘I can’t leave and there isn’t enough,’ he tells us, and this sums up his experience as an addict. He is always chasing something, and it’s always just out of his reach.