The Basketball Diaries by Jim Carroll: An Analysis

For my memoir analysis I chose The Basketball Diaries written by Jim Carroll. The book was first published in the United States by Tombouctou Books in 1978, then published and reprinted by Penguin books in 1987. James Dennis Carroll was born on August 1, 1949 in New York. He was of Irish Descent and grew up on New York's Lower East Side. In the sixth grade his brother took notice to his literary talent, so he encouraged him to pursue it. Apart from writing, Carroll was an all-star basketball player throughout his elementary and high school career. He entered the Biddy League (a youth basketball league) at age thirteen and participated in the National High School All Star Game in 1966. Although Carroll was a talented writer and basketball player he was secretly living as a heroin addict. To support his drug addiction Carroll went into prostitution. Although he was prostituting himself, he also wrote poems and attended poetry workshops. He briefly attended Wagner College and Columbia University. Carroll published his first collection of poems while in high school, “Organic Trains”. In 1987 Carroll wrote his second memoir, “Forced Entries: The Downtown Diaries”, which documented his life after high school and into his early adulthood in the New York City music and art scene. Along with his writing he was struggling to kick his drug addiction. In 1978 he moved to California after beating his drug addiction. He started a band called The Jim Carroll band which was based in the San Francisco area. Jim Carroll died of a heart attack on September 11, 2009 at his home in Manhattan.
I chose Basketball Diaries for my memoir analysis because I was intrigued by the story line. Themes of the book included drug abuse, alcohol, drugs and alcohol in social environments, prostitution, sex, and crime. Carroll is high on drugs in almost every diary entry. In the beginning I thought that he was simply a kid who was recreationally using drugs because he started out with marijuana

Cited: >"The American Drug Scene: An Anthology [Paperback]." The American Drug Scene: An Anthology: James A. Inciardi, Karen McElrath: 9780195332469: Amazon.com: Books. N.p., n.d. Web. 07 Mar. 2013. page 28, 50, 191 >Carroll, Jim. The Basketball Diaries. New York, N.Y., U.S.A.: Penguin, 1987. Print. page 121, 122, 33, 32, 191 >"Jim Carroll." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 03 May 2013. Web. 07 Mar. 2013.