Damien Enright

Damien Enright’s ‘Dope in the age of innocence’ is a compelling read. His memoir reveals intimate details of his early life but mostly those of the heady 60’s era that was host to his youth and is largely set on the Spanish islands of Ibiza and Formentera.

One of his peers has testified that Enright’s account of drug use is true to its day and like Enright, clearly survived the experimental life-style, which seemed to have evolved both spontaneously and innocently. The journalist, Joan Didion, captured this contemporary drug culture in California, in her essay, “Slouching Towards Bethlehem” but Enright’s memoir is immediate and personal. Unlike Didion’s characters, Enright is self-questioning and too proactive (we hope) to become a victim. The reader shares his agonies and delights and is concerned about how he will cope with life events and the betrayals and humiliations of love and friendships, that persist in every age. No two lives can ever be lived quite the same but this book appeals to the univeral experience.
Afterall, who can’t relate to a lost love affair and Enright finding himself, back in cold London “out of my head with grief and confusion” in a “life not lived but acted”? You want him to recover, recognising him as a model for self-determination and accepting how much we learn by our mistakes; how we detect a true friend, lover or the values of life that are important to us.

Having rejected medical school studies and the prospect of a career and respectability in small town Ireland, (think James Joyce and Samuel Beckett, to name two others!) he becomes a father at the age of 20. Enright must adapt to essential learning of the situation he finds himself in. Ever resourceful, he makes a sling to feed both at the one time, when his twin sons had to be fed every four hours! Later, an image of his costumed sons riding behind him on a motor bike like, ‘two miniature Supermen’ brings a burst of colour to the page.

In our heavily regulated world today, it’s hard to imagine learning to drive, not by instruction but by trial and error! Or to travel across borders without a proper passport. Enright’s account of cashing travellers cheques to raise money to live idyllically free of convention, transporting hash illegally for the sole consumption of ‘friends’ creates pacy reading and he offers, "No drug is more powerful than fear and adrenalin." In times of reckoning and retribution, he’s ‘always trying to remain positive’ but you can't help feeling that Medical school studies would have been easier then!

Enright can die, (not for many, many years more and at least a sequel to this book!) knowing that he lived his youth (by this account) fully, if not painfully. “Dope in the age of innocence” is a reconciliation of his youth but surely there’s more to follow? His epilogue leaves me wanting to read more.
Joan Murray, Dublin… (meer)