Jim Carroll and Richard Hell
Mama Kin
Boston, MA, 12 July 1997
Review by Kerry Roper-Clouten
My old roomate got me into Jim’s work 10 or so years ago when we met. I found Basketball Diaries and Forced Entries both moving and very entertaining. When I met my now husband 6 or so years ago I read them again with a new insight, I had begun using opiates. The books moved me, again. I became pregnant 3 yrs. later (accidentally), and kicked, read them again, and they took on yet another beautiful glow. We had our son. I sometimes wonder if I ever want him to read Jim’s stuff. I still haven’t made any decisions.
So anyway, we went to this reading with my old roomate, and her boyfriend. Jim reminds me of my husband, looks-wise (6 ft tall, 140 lbs, longish stringy hair, very very deep set eyes, Kind of Iggy-like) so you could say that I’m partial to him just ’cause of his face. But that night it had to have been more than his face that moved both of us. We’re a couple of cynical-ex-punks, and I figured we would wind up enjoying Richard Hell’s performance a bit more. I was wrong. The piece about Kurt C. had both of us in tears. TEARS. I haven’t cried in a long time. What was it about him? I remembered seeing Nirvana in 1990, three doors down from the place we were in. . . . And all that’s happened since. Jim is the only one who could have put into words so sweetly, crushingly, what a loss it has been to OUR generation. And then just as magically, bring us back, laughing. His tone adds something to the written word that I could never “get” from his poems, or novels. He made me feel like an old friend. Sitting in his apartment. Listening to some stuff he just wrote.