For the last several years, I’ve been working on a book with a friend about her life on drugs, selling drugs, and–finally–recovering from drugs. It’s kind of an amazing story. I met Laura well after she’d recovered from drugs, although she was still in the process of reclaiming certain aspects of her life. As I got to know her, more and more came out about her past and I told her that if she was ever interested, I’d help her write her story.
And what a story! Despair, struggle, redemption. All the basics. And, even though I’m joking, I don’t really want to make light of how deeply Laura was caught up in the drug culture and how difficult it was for her to claw her way out (not just from the drugs, but from the series of poor choices that a life on drugs had led her to).
Below you’ll find the back cover blurb. You can find Four Seconds on Amazon (in paperback and Kindle versions) and on Barnes and Noble.
We’ll also be signing this Saturday at Barnes and Noble in Evansville from 2-4. Hope to see you locals there.
Four Seconds: A Memoir by Laura Andrade
“I’m not going to try it,” I said.
“You’ll like it,” she argued.
“I know I’ll like it,” I said. “That’s why I’m not going to try it.”
“Try it just this once and I’ll never ask you to do it again.”
That was a deal. I slipped back into the driver’s seat while Pat corn-rowed two neat lines of the silky white powder on the back of a plastic cassette tape cover.
Fifteen hundred dollars every month, an abusive boyfriend, a molested child, a lost family, hotels for houses, a ruined leg, a gun to my head, a knife to my butt, a jail cell all my own. Black eyes, bruised days, broken hours.
Looking back, it seems strange what I gave up to get my roommate off my back.
It only took four seconds.
***
In her debut memoir, Andrade tells of her years with cocaine and crystal methamphetamines—using, then selling—until all she had left of the life she wanted was a chalk outline and a pack of cigarettes. This is the story of her use and recovery, of the people who frustrated and inspired her, of her decision to leave the drug world.
It is the story of her slow, often unsteady walk home.