Basketball Diaries

<b>The urban classic coming-of-age story about sex drugs and basketball</b> <p/> Jim Carroll grew up to become a renowned poet and punk rocker. But in this memoir of the mid-1960s set during his coming-of-age from 12 to 15 he was a rebellious teenager making a place and a name for himself on the unforgiving streets of New York City. During these years he chronicled his experiences and the result is a diary of unparalleled candor that conveys his alternately hilarious and terrifying teenage existence. Here is Carroll prowling New York City--playing basketball hustling stealing getting high getting hooked and searching for something pure. <i>The Basketball Diaries</i> was the basis for the film of the same name starring Leonardo DiCaprio. <p/>I met him in 1970 and already he was pretty much universally recognized as the best poet of his generation. . . . The work was sophisticated and elegant. He had beauty. -- Patti Smith