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LIKE BEING KILLED is a remarkable work. Rarely have I been so affected by a novel. Both poetic and disturbing, the novel employs the backdrop of the heroin lifestyle to tell its story while avoiding the usual drug clichés. The author has created characters who, even in their most squalid moments, are touching and human. While in its description, the novel may seem trite -- as every rock band has their heroin opus, so it seems that every New York City writer has their addiction novel -- reading it is a real experience that hits all the senses.
It's challenging material on many levels. The first novel to inspire me to send fan mail of any sort.

Stunning writing. Completely absorbing. Insane vocabulary and original story. I was obsessed the entire time I was reading it.

I loved this book so much, and it was in great shape. Crisp pages and cover, no marks at all. I'm thoroughly satisfied with my purchase :)

this is an amazing book. it's nihilistic, and super gritty. written extremely well and makes you not want to put it down.

I honestly cannot believe how amazing this book is...WOW!!!!! When it first came out there were some glowing reviews, but there weren't that many. The Times didn't like it and it didn't get the acclaim that the publishers we're sure it would get. Which makes me say, for as cliché as this may sound, I think her novel was/is simply waaaaayyyy ahead of its time. It's just too real, and I don't think most people can really handle real when it's right in their face. But that's what I most appreciate about her voice.
I started reading it again this morning; this will be my third or fourth read. I haven't picked it up in about two years. Every single sentence blows me away.
Mostly I think people, en mass, are not ready - or simply refuse - to face their shadow. And that's exactly what this book does so beautifully!
But as Ellen knew, when you simply slow down and look at the things you thought were so ugly and too brutal, you're amazed at what you see: a quiet, beautiful, fierce snapshot of life; raw & unashamed with SO much wisdom to offer...just like Ellen.
RIP, Beautiful one. I relish every word that you somehow, to my astonishment, managed to eke out of your overwhelming existence; words of such clarity & importance that they stop me dead in my tracks every time I even consider them.

I've always wanted to review this book, but I've always been afraid that I wouldn't do it justice, on the off-chance I would influence anyone either way. There would be no mistaking my affirming that this book is one of the most incredible things I ever read, but could really say WHY?
I bought this years ago, when it was new, at a small bookstore in Manhattan, and never really saw it anywhere since. I picked it up because I found junkie novels as addicting as drugs and I desperately wanted something new to read. Like Being Killed is my second favorite book ever (only usurped by John Irving's A Prayer for Owen Meany). A book gets that kind of status, where it's read and re-read and eventually get's bathtub-soaked, loses it's cover, and most of it's pages, when I feel like I didn't read it all, but that I was there, and when I finished it, I feel like I ended a relationship. When I have to discipline myself not to read it more than once a month, so it doesn't become mundane. When I forget the characters weren't real people in my life. Like Being Killed was one of those books.
The funny thing is, I really didn't like Ilyana. If she had been real, I don't think I'd wanna hang out with her. Yet I went on her journey, wept with her, got dopesick with her, went through betrayal with her, and found in her a voice to feelings I've had but could never articulate.
4 pages in, Miller writes, "Inwardly, I atoned for my inevitable klutziness, while simultaneously trying to conceal that I was atoning," and I felt the first of many bursts of YES!! I know exactly what you mean! I do that all the freaking time!! And I was hooked.
Yes, the tangents Ilyana goes on sometimes can be annoying. I skimmed right past them during my first reading--I mean, homegirl's sitting around getting high, and WHAM--suddenly, she's right in the middle of a thesis about, say, Holocaust history, metaphysics, anatomy, biology, medicine, Classical arts, linguistics, and I would be wondering what I missed, how'd we get from there to HERE? AFter a few readings, I understood it more, so I'd encourage anyone to re-read it. Over and over. If you're not spellbound, ya haven't read it enough times to get it! And, anyway, it was a great way to read a beautiful novel about friendship, betrayal, psychosis, addiction, self-destruction and redemption and simultaneously amass a LOT of random information! Suddenly, I had a little bank of knowledge about cell suicide, cognitive dissonance, the difference between dystonic and syntonic psychotics, critical flicker fusion, the word schmecken, and tons of random Catholic saints (I mean, who ever heard of Father Maximillan Kolbe, patron saint of addicts, or Saint Afra, patron saint of fallen women, or Saint Dympha, patron saint of the mentally ill?) It got me to start reading Primo Levi. It gave me sayings to fit any occasion (A sample--"The trouble with mental illness is, no matter how bad it gets, it never kills you," and the profound, "I understood for the first time that to recieve requires as much genorosity as to give.") I think I gained 10 IQ points just from a couple of readings.
Like Being Killed is also completely heartbreaking. You know from the beginning that Ilyana is down in the gutter because of the loss of "Susannah", that she was something beautiful, light and that somehow Ilyana did something to destroy them both. So, throughout the chapters with Susie's entrance into Ilyana'a apartment and life, which reads like a dysfunctional love story, there's always a feeling of impending doom. We know that the loss shatters Ilyana, that she is using the most effective way to forget, but cannot. "Whether I lived in accordance to her, or opposition to her, it was alongside her influence" (who hasn't been through THAT?) During some of the most intense, loving scenes between the two of them--the bath, the peach pies--I would hope, maybe this time Ilyana wouldn't screw it up. I would greive for them. And, I would wonder where the hell MY Susie is.
Only in the post-Christmas scene, where Paul comes back from Hopewell with Susie, dopesick and miserable outwardly and physically as acutely as Ilyana is abstractly, can you understand what made her promise to Paul negate her loyalty to Susie. You understand why she struggled.
And during the other chapters, copping and getting ripped off when she hooks up with Paul, her sadomasochistic relationship with the plumber (and I thought I was pretty worldly, but it was horrifying. I'd never HEARD of stuff like that), you sense that Ilyana's not as screwed as she thinks she is. Susie is still out there, and having been touched by her, it can't be undone. You root for her redemption, root for her reconciliation, despite what Susie becomes. And the new, damaged Susie is even easier to love than the healthy, sturdy, innocent Susie we met early on.
Oh, God, how do I describe how this book made me feel? It's turning meinto a mushy little dork. I'll shut up now.
Okay, for anyone who skimmed past this, just read this part--

Like Being Killed is amazing. You have to see it through. You HAVE to read it more than once. And during the best parts--The peach pies, the confrontation between Susie and Ilyana after the truth comes out, Ilyana's scene on the pier on the west side, when her suicide is thwarted by transsexual theif hooker Gabriella--really focus. Turn the TV off. Tell your boyfriend to shut up for a minute. Take your phone off the hook. And really pay attention. Take it in. Feel it.

Ellen Miller, will you PLEASE write something else, girlfriend?

I'm an extremely avid reader. I randomly came across this in the library, ATE it up! Rarely even do I commit to owning books as I usually only read them once, I can tell you I've read this at least 4 times in the 10 years I've owned it!
The visual descriptions are amazing. Besides having MANY MANY good quotes, I love the side stories she has, how the book sorta jumps around. The medicine cabinets as narratives is an excellent quote, but I'll share one that I enjoy and reminds me of myself (I put my foot in my mouth by asking a lot of questions, damn ADD)
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"She asked this the ways she asked all her questions, gently, with a child's bluntness, an honest curiosity, pushy and guileless, as if she SIMPLY WANTED TO KNOW."
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I encourage those who haven't read this yet, to know it's graphic at times. Even if one can't relate to someone feeling like a lost soul, there are other messages in this book.
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PS. RIP Ellen Miller (1967-2008) I'm sad your second novel wasn't completed. You had a huge impact on me through your writing. Know you were appreciated by many who didn't know you.