FREE: Basketball Diaries - Jim Carroll

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I saw the movie before it came out and I liked it. I didn't know what I was missing. Now that I read the original source I know what a load of Disney-fied garbage I was watching. Instead of a tale about "the loss of innocence" this is a horrifying and hilarilious trip through Hell as Jim Carroll gets more and more into the hustling junkie lifestyle. While Catholic Boy is a great CD, Carroll would never write anything so raw and crazy again. This is probably why Carroll's later stuff isn't as popular. Much of what makes this book great is how repulsed and intrigued you are with the narrator. When Jim Carroll grew up, kicked the addiction and stopped being such a creep, it was great for him and anyone around him, but he lost the main voice and never replaced it with anything quite so compelling.
After you read this book you should check out with Patti Smith's early book of poetry, Please Kill Me about the New York punk scene in which Carroll featured prominently and Catholic Boy. You might also want to watch the movie as it isn't bad by DiCaprio standards, although pretty awful by the standards of the book.