Throughout Drown, the drug dealing lifestyle is represented as a fairly mundane and without any special glamour. Both representations in the book describe the dealers as fairly normal people with their own problems, which in both cases involve relationships. The people that are buying the drugs are also fairly normal people being described as no one special. None of the people that by the drugs are police or politicians, they are just normal people who want an escape from their day to day lives.
The contrast represented by this dynamic in how drug dealers are viewed is fairly surprizing. The 1990s when this book was published, and the previous years in the decade marked a large amount of hype around drug dealing through popular rap as well as the war on drugs which started about 15 years before the publishing of the book. Rappers such as Nas and Dr. Dre became stars in the early and mid 1990s and were famous for talking about drug use as well as how drugs were used as a means to become rich. Dr. Dre is often seen as a kingpin-like figure in the sense of his gang-like lifestyle and involvement with crime. Jay-z is famous for expressing his rags-to-riches lifestyle which introduced the idea of being able to sell drugs to start out a career that would catapult you to fame. However, none of these ambitions seems to be represented by the characters in Drown that are selling drugs.
The main distinction between drug dealers in Drown and some who are popularized is the lack of bravado or sense of entitlement because they think they should be making tremendous amounts of money. Those in Drown do not think that drug dealing is glamorous in any way, and the sense of maturity that we get from the characters is fairly surprizing. The characters view drug dealing as just another job that they can compete fairly easily and to make enough money to get by. The character also don’t mention drug dealing much in the narratives. In both cases the main problem that they have deal with relationships and how those progress and regress to affect their lives in various ways.
Drug dealing is also a profession that Diaz does well to address in the context of the poorer areas in New Jersey. That fact that the characters don’t really believe that drug dealing is a nice way to get rich quick shows the understanding of how it really works. The dealers are selling product in very small quantities and just sell to get by. In addition, each seller has his own circumstances underlying why they are selling. The lack of education is one major contributing factor that spans over the whole community, as well as the lack of emotional stability in one case.
Overall, drug culture in Drown is something that isn’t stressed as a mainstay of life but is surely present. The drugs are not over glorified, but are still present as a means, if not the most respected, to get by. Those who use the drugs and those who sell them are really judged by anyone in the perspectives we get, and drugs aren’t really the main focus of the stories. The drug culture in Drown present a direct contrast to the popular views of drug culture that spanned media in the years prior to the publishing of the book.
