I’d been meaning to read Drugs Are Nice ever since I saw it in an Atlanta bookstore a few years ago. I kicked myself for not buying it then; for some reason, I’ve had the worst time coming across it again. But I’ve finally caught up, and I can say without hesitation that I am absolutely terrified of Lisa “Suckdog” Carver. Again, this is a good thing.

Carver was an important figure in the ’80s post-punk movement, rising to fame after meeting GG Allin, who inspired her to form the “band” Suckdog, even though she had no musical talent. She started making noisy tapes with her friend Rachel and later turned to performing shocking art pieces that involved intentionally humiliating herself, her very likely mentally ill French husband Jean Louis Costes, and her audience (an infamous event involved her pissing into a litter box onstage and throwing the clumps at stunned audience members as they tried to leave). Carver later started one of the first zines, Rollerderby, in which she gave visibility to Bill Callahan, Vaginal Davis, Dame Darcy, Cindy Dall, Boyd Rice, Costes, Nick Zedd, GG Allin, Kate Landau, Queen Itchie & Liz Armstrong. She also had a child with neo-nazi Boyd Rice (industrial musician and member of Church of Satan), leaving him after years of abuse. Her son, Wolfgang, was born with a genetic deletion.

Some people have called Carver and her writing style the female Hunter S. Thompson, but while Carver is just about as insane, I find her a thousand times scarier. Instead of enjoying your drugs and being entertainingly nuts, Carver calculatingly loses her mind. And she does so with a sense of knowing naivety. Carver goes on about how she wanted to live authentically, appreciating the grime and insanity of those around her. She was empathetic toward these people, so it made sense to her to do such insane things as well and to revel in them. She shocked people because she liked to see people horrified. She became a prostitute because she liked the idea of trying on other people’s personalities (and later didn’t have a single negative thing to say about it–a rare occurence. This also came from a person who was terrified by sex.), and she became involved with a neo-nazi because she wanted to figure him out.

While it’s debatable as to whether Carver actually had all of these adventures, it’s also difficult to doubt her. Carver writes with such an excitable, childlike tone (soooo many exclamation points) that you want desperately to believe her; she’s so enthralled to be involved in such debauchery simply because it’s the opposite of boring, and she ignores things that most people would call the cops over, such as her husband (who at the time was in his late 30s) beginning a relationship with a 12-year-old girl. Her answer to all of these events is to essentially shrug it off and try on a new persona. Throughout all of this, Carver expresses an obsession with her father (whom she lived with when she was 15, right after he got out of jail for murder), a sort of Elektra complex she subconsciously tries to sort out with all of the older, twisted men she is linked with. Because of this troubled idealism, at times I felt like I shouldn’t be reading the memoir, that I was reading the writings of a woman not altogether there, that I was intrigued by her misfortune and lack of understanding.

However, Carver’s writing style and tone completely change after she gives birth to Wolfgang. Of course, motherhood brings a certain sense of responsibility, but this shift is drastic. Carver realizes that she’s been self-destructive her entire life and needs to create a safe environment for herself and her child. She then comes to terms with her relationship with her father, and even though she admits how difficult it is to raise a sickly child, becomes a dedicated and careful mother. At this point in her life, Carver becomes a bit moralistic in her writing, but it’s difficult to chide her for doing so. It’s not like the girl hasn’t been through hell and came out all right. The wonder felt in the first half of the book might be replaced by a sense of “we’re going to make it, baby and me,” but it’s also quite tragic, given everything that’s preceded this time. Besides, I don’t think anyone would be satisfied reading this if she were to revert back to peeing in people’s mouths to watch them squirm.

Today, Carver writes a sex column for Nerve.com. She lives in Dover, New Hampshire.

Check out Rollerderby, the infamous underground zine.
Go buy Drugs Are Nice from Soft Skull Press. It’ll do ya some good.