The Survival of the Coolest is the story of a great-great-grandson of Charles Darwin's death-defying journey into the interior of heroin addiction in the 1960's and back out again. William Pryor's privileged Cambridge background, growing up on the edges of the Bloomsbury phenomenon and in the bosom of the Darwin dynasty, was no proof against addiction to heroin and other psychosomatic substances. Coolest is a compelling, lucid and honest account of a descent into addiction by a privileged beatnik manning the counter-cultural barricades with the likes of Alex Trocchi, Syd Barrett and Viscount Billy Bolitho. Brought on by a police sting as he tried to run a bohemian bookshop in Torquay, Pryor's subsequent crash-landing at what Alcoholics Anonymous describes as 'rock bottom' marked the end of his addiction in 1975. Twenty-eight years later and still clean, William Pryor throws some much-needed light on the nature of addiction and recovery and on the mythologies, folklore and downright lies that surround a condition that affects a large proportion of the population. Dorothy Rowe, the psychologist and author of over 40 books, said The Survival of the Coolest is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand why a War on Drugs and Just Say No can never work, and why some people become addicted to drugs while others do not. Norman Marshall (a director of Transform, the drug legislation consultancy) wrote: I must say found it absolutely riveting. it is ultimately a very uplifting read about (obviously) Survival, redemption, forgiveness and being seen. I don't know that I have ever read a book that quite so ruthlessly lays bare its subject, with a coolness and objectivity that takes all the pretentiousness, self-pity and selfishness of young William and makes them understandable, forgiveable, deeply human.

Survival of the Coolest

Biographies & Memoirs

Pryor, William

Memoirs

Intl Pub Marketing

Jacques Raverat was a French painter who died of MS aged 40 in 1925. In 1911, he had married Gwen Darwin, granddaughter of the evolutionist and also an artist. They knew Virginia Woolf and Bloomsbury well and when they moved to the south of France for his health, their friendship blossomed in a series of long and poignant letters. The crucial bond was that between Jacques and Virginia. Their correspondence ranged far and wide. Informed by the depressions and uncertainties, the speculation and passion of their bohemian lives, these letters display a complex affinity between three artists facing their own mortality, their weaknesses and the price of their creativity. It is a friendship whose later substance and passion was entirely expressed by letter. Virginia Woolf &amp; the Raverats is not only a complete record of their correspondence, but includes much previously unpublished material. None of the Raverat letters, the extracts from Gwen Raverat’s other writings, her powerful sketches of her husband on his deathbed, nor Jacques’ paintings have been published before. There are facsimile reproductions of crucial letters, diary and journal entries.

Virginia Woolf & the Raverats: A Different Sort of Friendship

RAVERAT, Gwen

WOOLF, VIRGINIA

Raverat, Jacques

Arts & Literature

Clear Books

William Pryor, a great-great-grandson of Charles Darwin, was a heroin and then alcohol addict for twelve years in the sixties and seventies. He brushed death several times, but, against overwhelming odds, survived, and, in 1975, was one of the first patients at the first American-style addiction treatment centre in Europe. He grew up in Cambridge in the stifling bosom of privilege; was sent to Eton, which he loathed, and rapidly descended into full-blown addiction as he traveled through Parisian garrets, Greek tavernas and Indian ashrams - and even Trinity College Cambridge. He became part of the sixties avant garde counterculture as a dadaist beat poet in the company of members of Pink Floyd. His experiences - and subsequent transformation to non-addiction - have given him a unique insight into the world of hard drugs and addiction, and his clarity of vision as to the way forward for all those involved in the fall out of the War on Drugs will be invaluable both to the victims and to those engaged in attempting to help them. William presents a compelling argument as to why dugs should be decriminalized. He also gives a powerful analysis of the pervasive mythology of Alcoholics Anonymous and how it traps people in the idea that addiction is an illness.

The Survival of the Coolest: An Addiction Memoir

Humor & Entertainment

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