Critical Outtakes: William T. Vollmann

From an interview conducted in Sacramento in the summer of 2000, prior to the publication of "The Royal Family."

Q: I gather you often used drugs with people in the Tenderloin to get a better sense of the life there. Did you ever worry you'd get addicted?

A: I don't know, not really. I probably used crack over 100 times in my life, but I never found myself craving it. But there's a really nice coffee shop down the street from my house, and I go there sometimes to get a coffee and a cookie. And sometimes I find myself waking up really wanting that cookie. That never happened with crack.

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