Smacked

  

Smacked by Melinda Ferguson (Oshun) R130,00

‘Smacked’ is the memoir of a promising local filmmaker, wife and mother turned destitute drug addict. In six years of slavery to cocaine, heroin and anything else she could lay her hands on, Melinda lost it all.

Her honesty is shocking. Her writing is blunt, brutal and as ugly as the grimy Hillbrow flats she called home amidst the cesspool of druggies, dealers, prostitutes and pimps. Initially, I despised this young, talented girl from Joburg’s northern suburbs who turned feral, wasted her ample opportunities and annihilated herself and those around her.

Toward the end of the book, she won my respect and admiration. To have dragged her body and soul back from such depths of despair, displays tremendous courage and fortitude. Young adults and parents of teenagers, buy this book.

Read her story and be astonished at just how slippery the slope can be.

Score: 5/5 (Brave Birdie)
Christine Weston

Smacked by Melinda Ferguson (Oshun) R130.00

This is a true story about the hard facts of drug addiction and how it can overcome you and ruin your life.

Melinda Ferguson is a University graduate and you wonder why a person with such talents becomes addicted. She comes from a middle class background but it seems the death of her father when she was four started off this addiction in her personality.

Her fellow addict becomes the father of her child and they marry but destroy each other with their dependency.

He comes from a more stable, caring family and manages to fight the addiction. This frightening story takes place in Hillbrow in Johannesburg and is well described because Melinda’s command of the English language is excellent, even though at times the language is rough.

The story may answer your curiosity as to why people become addicts. Totally absorbing, it is difficult to put the book down.

Dee Andrew (5/5)

In the name of addiction Melinda becomes someone I can never be, goes to places I cannot imagine going, and stoops to levels impossibly low. Yet she overcomes something larger than herself.

Wiida Hamman (3/5)