The Book of Mary: Diary of an Addict

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Book of Mary

Book of MaryA box of miscellaneous items, contents unknown, is purchased at an estate sale. At the bottom of the box are journals covering the period 1986 to 1993. They have been written by a woman named Mary living in the northeast United States. Mary is 32 at the date of the first entry. She has a very young daughter, with health problems, whom she is raising and loves dearly.

During the roughly 6.5 years covered by the journals, Mary struggles with drug addiction, has a few brief part-time jobs, periodically works as a prostitute, has her fourth abortion, maintains relationships with several men, and is HIV-positive. The writing is raw and honest and profane and vulgar and full of tragic, fleeting, unfocused hopes and tissue-thin plans to improve her life.

After the last journal entry, dated April 1993, we have no more information about Mary, except this: Social Security records reveal that she died in 1997, her address at time of death listed as Unknown. Her parents are dead, and her daughter cannot be located.

Anthony Zurlo was at that auction. As he later read Mary’s journals, his heart was broken at the hopelessness he saw in its pages. Your heart may be broken as well. But Anthony also saw a version of his own life in Mary’s challenges. It is, in fact, a version of all our lives as we struggle daily to resist the habits, desires, and thought patterns that come so easily but do such damage. Anthony has transcribed the journal writings faithfully—including misspellings; various errors and oddities; and entries that are undated, misdated, or were apparently written in random blank spots and thus appear out of order—with the following exceptions:

    • Names and initials in the journal have been changed, except for Mary’s first name.

    • Profanity and vulgarity have been replaced with ____.

    • Accounts of sexual encounters have been omitted, with the omissions noted.

Also not reproduced here are many clippings pasted or slipped into the journals, mostly from magazines and primarily pertaining to fashion, drug use, sexuality, movies, and TV.

Anthony has also written an introduction and a conclusion, and at three points in the journal has added observation and commentary on Mary’s life, the nature of hope, and the many ways in which all our lives are not so unlike hers.

Fair warning: Your brain will probably fill in some of the rough language represented by blanks. Please understand that before you decide to read ‘The Book of Mary: Diary of an Addict’.

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