Reviews

Stephen Elliott’s ‘The Adderall Diaries’

adderall-cover21Head prognosticator of the ever-lovely Rumpus, one Mr. Stephen Elliott, author of, among other things, the amazing ‘Happy Baby’ that remains in my mind as one of the most brutal and visceral autobiographical novels I’ve read in the last 5 years, is offering folks potentially interested in checking out his new memoir forthcoming from Graywolf:

I have a few advance copies of my forthcoming true-crime/memoir The Adderall Diaries, to give out.

The book will be published in September, but if you send an email to adderall@therumpus.net I might send you an advance copy (I also might not, we’ll have to see how this goes, I’ve only got a couple). Here’s the hitch, if I mail you a book I’ll also email you the address of the next person to send it to. You have a week to read it, then you have to send your copy to the next address. First class postage is $3.04. So this is not totally free.

In your email please include your address and a little bit about yourself. Priority given to people who are verifiably real.

Anybody interested in taking Mr. Elliott’s fine offer up and reviewing the book for us here at the Giant, please contact Stephen and see if you can wrangle a copy, and let me know. :)

Either way, this is one to get excited about.

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5 Comments

  1. Ken Baumann

      Elliot is the man and I look forward to reading this one.

  2. Ken Baumann

      Elliot is the man and I look forward to reading this one.

  3. Neil Elliott

      Great Read From Bestselling Author

      The author is one of the great writers of our times, and his 12 books have sold millions of copies around the world. In times to come, people will wonder that such a man existed in our age. He has been called, “a combination of Francois Villon, James T. Farrell, Maxim Gorky, Victor Hugo, and Dosteovski–on their best days!” And both the New York Times and an editor at Vanity Fair called his last novel, HAPPY BABY, “…the most beautiful and intelligent book ever written…” His stepmother called him “strong, dependable, and giving” when he was 13, and you can see those qualities in his work, as well as a gift for irony.

      His great uncle Simon Frug was the last Natonal Jewish Poet of Russia under the Tsar Nicholas, but he grew up in an upper middle class home, in the wealthy Chicago enclave of Indian Boundary. At 14 he larked about the streets with his pals, doing drugs and alcohol. His father protected him from drug dealers who threatened him. At 15 his father let him live in a Jewish Childrens Bureau group home near their house with 6 other teens. He finished college without debt thanks to his dad, who also gave him free apartments, paid for graduate school, and paid his gambling debts. Then he started writing books in which he claimed to be an oppressed sad person. In these books he is always telling us his dad is a bad person, but is not very precise about why.

      He writes out of a deep compulsion that has nothing to do with free will. As Isaac Bashevis Singer once said, “Of course I believe in free will–I have no choice!”

      But with sweetness, goodness, and genius like this, who cares what’s created by compulsion and what isn’t?

  4. Neil Elliott

      Great Read From Bestselling Author

      The author is one of the great writers of our times, and his 12 books have sold millions of copies around the world. In times to come, people will wonder that such a man existed in our age. He has been called, “a combination of Francois Villon, James T. Farrell, Maxim Gorky, Victor Hugo, and Dosteovski–on their best days!” And both the New York Times and an editor at Vanity Fair called his last novel, HAPPY BABY, “…the most beautiful and intelligent book ever written…” His stepmother called him “strong, dependable, and giving” when he was 13, and you can see those qualities in his work, as well as a gift for irony.

      His great uncle Simon Frug was the last Natonal Jewish Poet of Russia under the Tsar Nicholas, but he grew up in an upper middle class home, in the wealthy Chicago enclave of Indian Boundary. At 14 he larked about the streets with his pals, doing drugs and alcohol. His father protected him from drug dealers who threatened him. At 15 his father let him live in a Jewish Childrens Bureau group home near their house with 6 other teens. He finished college without debt thanks to his dad, who also gave him free apartments, paid for graduate school, and paid his gambling debts. Then he started writing books in which he claimed to be an oppressed sad person. In these books he is always telling us his dad is a bad person, but is not very precise about why.

      He writes out of a deep compulsion that has nothing to do with free will. As Isaac Bashevis Singer once said, “Of course I believe in free will–I have no choice!”

      But with sweetness, goodness, and genius like this, who cares what’s created by compulsion and what isn’t?

  5. HTMLGIANT / A Conversation About The Adderall Diaries

      […] I contacted Stephen Elliott immediately after I read the Blake Butler post about the advanced copies of the book. I got really excited. I think I got overly excited. […]