TRAGIC MAGIC: The Life and Crimes of...

TRAGIC MAGIC: The Life and Crimes of a Heroin Addict by Stuart L. Hills & Ron Santiago (Nelson-Hall Publishers: $13.95). This straightforward memoir documents the struggle of a black Cuban-American with heroin and the vicious culture that surrounds it. A largely self-educated drug counselor, poet and self-avowed “dope fiend,” Santiago emerges as an articulate, complex man who describes the insidious power of heroin, and how it came to dominate his existence. He calmly recounts the robberies and burglaries he committed to sustain his habit--and the loopholes in the American judicial system that allowed him to be arrested and released to commit additional crimes. Santiago’s recollections of life in the urban underclass reveal the folly of imprisoning drug addicts without providing for their rehabilitation.