["Dinky Hocker Shoots Smack!"] is not only a revolting and cryptic title …; it is, as well, a put-on. Dinky, whose perfectly reasonable real name is Susan, is not a hophead but a lunchhead, and hers is the story of the ups and downs of weight-watching with her obese and mossback boyfriend, P. John Knight, whose admiration for the late Senator Joe McCarthy is not less credible than this gobbet of dialogue:

"Does heroin give you pimples?" Tucker asked.

'All junk does. Junkies love sweets," Dinky said authoritatively. "I never met a junkie who didn't verge on bulbous acne."

The publicity people at Harper & Row are so struck with the verve and know-how of their heroine that they begin their flap copy with this come-on. I hope the original Harper Brothers have long ago become insentient mycelium. (p. 190)