Review of a live performance 23 September 1997
by Holly Bedard
The New Hampshire Online
26 September 1997
Author, poet, musician Jim Carroll looked out into the sea of over 350 faces that came to see him in the Strafford Room of the MUB Tuesday night. His small, pale, heart-shaped face gleamed the experience of many years, many heartaches, and much wisdom. He began to speak . . . about “crabs.”
Reading “A Day at the Races,” a story from his novel, “Four Centuries [Forced Entries – cc],” Carroll, of “The Basketball Diaries” fame, told the crowd a story of love, well, of love and sexually-transmitted “invaders.” He made what would make most people cringe and shutter into a matter which provoked laughter and smiles.
Carroll, brought to UNH as part of MUSO’s Arts Lecture Series, said he began writing around the ripe age of 13. A Christian grade school teacher had coaxed him into the sports editor position at the school paper, and taught Carroll to learn different modes of writing.
“He made me fall in love with writing,” he said.
Carroll’s thoughts on the movie “The Basketball Diaries,” were near ambivalent.
“It was O.K,” he said.
Carroll, with his black Doc Martin-esque shoes, skinny blue jeans and black Superfly leather jacket, seemed a bit tense, while he fought a bout with the sniffles. He read several selections from his novels and finished with his as-of-yet unpublished poetry.
Currently, Carroll is living in New York City and working on two novels and a spoken word album with Mercury.
The original article is/was here: http://www.tnh.unh.edu/Issues/092697/Arts/carroll.html