The outstanding literary achievement of Smack is Burgess's development of ten distinctive voices to tell the story and the placement of those voices in such a way that they comment on each other. Gemma and Tar narrate just over half of the chapters. The other chapters are distributed among Skolly, the tobacconist; Richard, the anarchist; Vonny, Richard's girlfriend through much of the novel; Sally, Rob, and Lily, all heroin addicts; Emily Brogan, Gemma's mother; and Mr. Lawson, Tar's father. Each character has a distinctive voice that conveys a complex view of the situation. None of the characters seems to speak for the author.

Because there is no consistent narrative perspective in the novel, readers must recognize irony and think carefully about what the characters are saying. An obvious example is when Gemma explains directly to the reader that using heroin is just a part of life...