Requiem for a Dream
Hubert Selby, Jr.
 This story follows the lives of Harry, Marion, Tyrone, and Sara, who are all searching for the key to their dreams, and in the process, they get flung into a devastating life of addiction. Harry and Marion are in love and want to open their own business; their friend Tyrone wants to escape life in the ghetto. To achieve these dreams, they buy a large amount of heroin, planning to get rich by selling it. Sara is Harry’s lonely, widowed mother. Sara’s dream is to be on television, and when a phone call from a casting company gets her hopes up, she spends the next few months on diet pills to lose weight. She becomes addicted and soon develops amphetamine psychosis, eventually ending up in a mental institution and undergoes electroconvulsive therapy. Harry, Marion and Tyrone, meanwhile, become addicted to their own product. Harry and Tyrone end up in jail, where Harry's infected arm is amputated. Marion, left alone, begins a life of prostitution to support her addiction.