Crank

Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses drug use and substance use disorder, which feature in the source text.

Crank is written in an unusual style, with chapters arranged as individual poems. How does the format affect your reading of the book? What are the advantages of this literary style? What are the disadvantages? Support your answers with examples from the text.

Choose any one chapter of Crank and rewrite it in your own words as a chapter in prose. Feel free to provide details or backstory you think the poem-chapter may have omitted. Compare the original and your version and note down their differences.

Kristina wonders why Adam uses drugs even though he has seen his “brother lie down for the demon” (205). Why do Adam and Kristina find it difficult to stop using drugs despite knowing drug use is dangerous?