A House on Stilts: Mothering in the Age of Opioid Addiction
by Paula Becker
University of Iowa Press, 2019 Paper: 978-1-60938-659-7 | eISBN: 978-1-60938-660-3 Library of Congress Classification HV5822.H4 Dewey Decimal Classification 362.2933092
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
ABOUT THIS BOOK
A House on Stilts tells the story of one woman’s struggle to reclaim wholeness while mothering a son addicted to opioids. Paula Becker’s son Hunter was raised in a safe, nurturing home by his writer/historian mom and his physician father. He was a bright, curious child. And yet, addiction found him.
More than 2.5 million Americans are addicted to opioids, some half-million of these to heroin. For many of them, their drug addiction leads to lives of demoralization, homelessness, and constant peril. For parents, a child’s addiction upends family life, catapulting them onto a path no longer prescribed by Dr. Spock, but by Dante’s Inferno. Within this ten-year crucible, Paula is transformed by an excruciating, inescapable truth: the difference between what she can do and what she cannot do.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Paula Becker is the author of Looking for Betty MacDonald: The Egg, The Plague, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, and I, and coauthor of The Future Remembered: The 1962 Seattle World’s Fair and Its Legacy. She lives in Seattle, Washington.
REVIEWS
“Really brilliant. I often feel that addiction lies right outside in this way. This is a remarkable book. And an utterly terrifying one.”—Andrew Solomon, author, Far from the Tree: Parents, Children and the Search for Identity
— Andrew Solomon
“A House on Stilts is the story of a family just like yours perhaps, or the family next door. Through raw and authentic expression, we come to share in this mother’s loss of dreams for her addicted son. Paula Becker deftly shows how addiction can happen to anyone.”—D’Anne Burwell, author, Saving Jake: When Addiction Hits Home
— D'Anne Burwell
“Paula Becker pulls back the curtain and shows us what is typically only whispered about: the opioid crisis among young, white privileged kids and the effect on their middle-class families. Becker, in a fashion true to her historian roots, digs into the opioid crisis that is leaving no demographic untouched, and also digs into her past, looking at her parenting for clues and wrong turns along the route to her son’s teenage years. Ultimately, what she writes is an elegy for Hunter, who she finally realizes had been walking his own path all along.”—Kate Carroll De Gutes, author, Objects In Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear
— Kate Carroll De Gutes
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contents
Prologue
Ultrastrong
Didn't Know Anything
Chasing It
The Squat
The Accident
Totally Fucked
Flying South
Waiting
Family Week
A Hundred Needles
Thanksgiving
Harm Reduction
Lights in the Night
The Visit
The Climb
Jonah
The Passport
Flying East
Market Street
Runaway Bunny
Drugstore Cowboy
Love Is
Requiem
REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
If you are a student who cannot use this book in printed form, BiblioVault may be able to supply you
with an electronic file for alternative access.
Please have the accessibility coordinator at your school fill out this form.
A House on Stilts: Mothering in the Age of Opioid Addiction
by Paula Becker
University of Iowa Press, 2019 Paper: 978-1-60938-659-7 eISBN: 978-1-60938-660-3
A House on Stilts tells the story of one woman’s struggle to reclaim wholeness while mothering a son addicted to opioids. Paula Becker’s son Hunter was raised in a safe, nurturing home by his writer/historian mom and his physician father. He was a bright, curious child. And yet, addiction found him.
More than 2.5 million Americans are addicted to opioids, some half-million of these to heroin. For many of them, their drug addiction leads to lives of demoralization, homelessness, and constant peril. For parents, a child’s addiction upends family life, catapulting them onto a path no longer prescribed by Dr. Spock, but by Dante’s Inferno. Within this ten-year crucible, Paula is transformed by an excruciating, inescapable truth: the difference between what she can do and what she cannot do.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Paula Becker is the author of Looking for Betty MacDonald: The Egg, The Plague, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, and I, and coauthor of The Future Remembered: The 1962 Seattle World’s Fair and Its Legacy. She lives in Seattle, Washington.
REVIEWS
“Really brilliant. I often feel that addiction lies right outside in this way. This is a remarkable book. And an utterly terrifying one.”—Andrew Solomon, author, Far from the Tree: Parents, Children and the Search for Identity
— Andrew Solomon
“A House on Stilts is the story of a family just like yours perhaps, or the family next door. Through raw and authentic expression, we come to share in this mother’s loss of dreams for her addicted son. Paula Becker deftly shows how addiction can happen to anyone.”—D’Anne Burwell, author, Saving Jake: When Addiction Hits Home
— D'Anne Burwell
“Paula Becker pulls back the curtain and shows us what is typically only whispered about: the opioid crisis among young, white privileged kids and the effect on their middle-class families. Becker, in a fashion true to her historian roots, digs into the opioid crisis that is leaving no demographic untouched, and also digs into her past, looking at her parenting for clues and wrong turns along the route to her son’s teenage years. Ultimately, what she writes is an elegy for Hunter, who she finally realizes had been walking his own path all along.”—Kate Carroll De Gutes, author, Objects In Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear
— Kate Carroll De Gutes
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contents
Prologue
Ultrastrong
Didn't Know Anything
Chasing It
The Squat
The Accident
Totally Fucked
Flying South
Waiting
Family Week
A Hundred Needles
Thanksgiving
Harm Reduction
Lights in the Night
The Visit
The Climb
Jonah
The Passport
Flying East
Market Street
Runaway Bunny
Drugstore Cowboy
Love Is
Requiem
REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
If you are a student who cannot use this book in printed form, BiblioVault may be able to supply you
with an electronic file for alternative access.
Please have the accessibility coordinator at your school fill out this form.
It can take 2-3 weeks for requests to be filled.
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE