zoo station: the story of christiane f., by christiane f.
autobiography, young adult | mature audiences | 5 stars

*some spoilers ahead*

this is a brutal book, i have to say that as a preface. if you haven’t heard about it, it’s about a teenage heroin addict - christiane f and her life in the 1970s berlin and the drugs and sex work scene there.

the book was written with the help of transcripts from when two journalists, kai hermann and horst rieck met christiane f in a trial. she was a witness in the trial of a man who paid underage girls heroin in exchange for sex. these two interviewed her for two months (the interview was supposed to last two hours but it developed into something more) - they first released the interviews in the stern magazine but later the publishing house made a book from them.

the book starts with christiane as a child and immediately it portrays a very bleak life, with an abusive father who lashes out at the smallest infractions (and most of them imagined in his weird abusive head), her only comfort being her pets. and throughout the book, her pets slowly disappear and die. and the fate of her pets is somehow similar to the fate of christiane.

she first drinks alcohol at 12, along with smoking pot (well, hashish) and taking lsd at a youth club. things spiral hard from there and at 14 she’s a herion addict and a sex worker, usually working and hanging around the eponymous zoo station. zoo station is a railway station in berlin and it was a big part of the drug and sex work scene, with usually addicts hanging around and waiting for clients. a lot of them were underage. and zoo station is a major setting of this book (autobiography), the descriptions can literally make you sick (i felt nauseous reading some parts) and christiane’s childlike narration will at times annoy you greatly but then you remember she’s an actual child and then feel guilty and want her to find the help she so desperately needs.

another major character is detlef, her boyfriend, who is also a heroin addict and a sex worker. it’s difficult to read about their relationship which seems innocent at times, but then they have sex together with a client and then get high together (one last fix is often mentioned but never actually managed action) and the two of them are a trainwreck. they try to get clean together but then end up enabling each other and it’s very very hard to read. detox attempts are especially described really vividly and you’ll feel sick right along with christiane.

christiane’s downward spiral is rapid and again, brutal, and you forget about how young she is until she mentions it, her birthday or the birthday or age of one of her friends, who are also drug addicts and sex workers, and then you’re shocked all over again.

there are parts of the book that are contributed to by her mother, and, you can see the woman is trying but she’s so deep in denial about some things and how desperately her daughter needs help that you just want to shake her and make her do something. but apparently, in the 1970s, rehab wasn’t that easy to get into or even get any information on, so both christiane and her mother had very very small chances of being able to do something.

whenever i've re-read it, i've had this strange feeling of dread while reading it -  i know what happens but each time you go over the pages and see small slivers of hope interspersed throughout you sense dread because you know there's no hope. christiane is still alive, but she's still struggling with her addiction (at least from what i've read). the latest edition i've read also includes photographs from that time of christiane and her friends, and just seeing them and connecting those pictures of real people with what you're reading about them is such a disturbing experience but it's worth it.

another thing worth mentioning is that there's also value in reading about how life really was during the 70s in berlin, growing up poor, in big housing estates... gropiusstadt is the berlin district where christiane lived and during that time it really did have a huge problem with drugs. but there's another layer i've found interesting ever since i went to architecture school - the place was imagined as this great part of berlin where people from the rest of west germany would come and develop, designed by the architect walter gropius, but it really, truly failed in that aspect, and it's a valuable lesson when thinking about the city and urban planning.

it’s a sad book but it’s one worth reading.