{"id":10565,"date":"2025-07-31T19:30:43","date_gmt":"2025-08-01T02:30:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/?page_id=10565"},"modified":"2025-08-08T21:38:51","modified_gmt":"2025-08-09T04:38:51","slug":"04-12-2001-jc-cc","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/research\/cassies-research\/04-12-2001-jc-cc\/","title":{"rendered":"04-12-2001-JC-CC"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This is something I wrote for the JC list but never sent.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Interesting conversation with Jim tonight. Very interesting! For once I have some genuinely new and IMPORTANT insight on Jim’s work. Take notes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don’t recall how the subject came up, but we got on the topic of lying. Well, specifically, it was about people who believe their own lies. In the course of this conversation, after some big-time ribbing about him being a liar (which he’s not, believe me), I encountered my first opportunity to tell Jim about what the folks on the Inwood list say about him. I was hoping to get some insight into why they are so insistent upon calling him a liar, and I said to him at one point, “er, I mean, you grew up with these people, and I thought you might have some, er, insight about the cultural . . .” Jim jumped in immediately, saying that he doesn’t know anything about the cultural anything of Inwood. Prepare yourself for the Jim Carroll quote of the century:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I grew up inside my head.”<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

That answer, which denied my cultural approach to the problem, probably did more to answer my Inwood questions than anything else Jim could have said about the cultural context of the neighborhood, and it confirmed my suspicions. Jim is a man “without a country” in the sense that he doesn’t have a “neighborhood” to call home. And I think that’s the problem with the Inwoodites: Jim isn’t one of their own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To summarize, people on the Inwood list have said, with much spite, that Jim’s diaries are not records of actual experiences but, rather, composites of other people’s experiences. Based on reading people’s accounts in the Inwood list’s archives, I have never been entirely convinced of the accuracy of these claims when considering the details of specific instances. For example, generally the dates are wrong. But I have wondered about the general principle. So that’s what I talked to Jim about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In particular, Jim and I talked about two entries taking place at the Good Shepherd School in Inwood, because those two have been challenged by people on the Inwood list. One was “Today’s school day should be up for ‘Ripley’s Believe It Or Not” (BD 28-29) about a series of epileptic seizures in the classroom. The other was about “Mikey Benavisti” and Brother G.’s “routine” of whipping boys in the closet (BD 35-37). The latter was the more contentious entry on the Inwood list, but we focused on “Believe It Or Not.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Okay, let me warn everyone that what I am about to report may conflict with your cherished notions about The Basketball Diaries<\/em>. Consider this a spoiler notice and move on if you are frightened . . .<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cut to the chase: the Inwood list folks are correct, but not about specifics. Jim did, in fact, “fictionalize” The Basketball Diaries<\/em> by combining events. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ten years ago, I probably would have been horrified by this revelation, but today I find myself more impressed than ever. Ten years ago, I was amazed by the “biographical details.” Today, I’m more amazed by the fact that a teenager was looking at the chaotic world he was living in, sorting out the details, and creating a WORLD out of it. What amazes me tonight, having just gotten the details from the horse’s mouth, is the fact that a kid, 12-15 years old, was thinking as a WRITER. I’ve read the story a million times about how “A shrewd basketball coach got the tall redhead into an uptown Catholic school, where one of the brothers, hip to the light in Jim’s eyes, made him the sports editor of the school paper and passed along columns by Red Smith and others that Jim would study, underlining similes and metaphors, and slowly begin to understand the craft of writing” (see Milward’s article: http:\/\/www.catholicboy.com\/milward.asp). I’ve read a thousand times how Jim wanted to write a novel but wasn’t, at the time, able to sustain an extended plot. It had never occurred to me that The Basketball Diaries<\/em> was actually Jim Carroll’s first attempt at a novel, but it was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The brother who was “hip to the light in Jim’s eyes” was Brother Kenny at Good Shepherd School in Inwood, and his premier appearance in The Basketball Diaries<\/em> is in the “Believe It Or Not” entry. Here’s where the “composite” nature of the fiction comes in. The classroom was actually Brother Louis’s (or Lewis’s), but Jim made the conscious decision to make Brother Kenny the hero. Hearing this from Jim was amazing to me, because Brother Kenny is one of maybe three people who come out as good guys in the book. Jim wrote it that way . . . at 14 years old! Still, the details are true. From memory he rattled off the names of the epileptics. Christian Levy was one; his nickname was “Doing” because of his tendency to lapse into seizures (he became, shockingly enough, “Don Levy”). Bobby Bishop became “Billy Burlap,” and Carlos Rodriguez became “Carlo Puzo.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is something I wrote for the JC list but never sent. Interesting conversation with Jim tonight. Very interesting! For once I have some genuinely new and IMPORTANT insight on Jim’s work. Take notes. I don’t recall how the subject came up, but we got on the topic of lying. Well, specifically, it was about … Continue reading 04-12-2001-JC-CC<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":10563,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"folder":[],"class_list":["post-10565","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P9VlUH-2Kp","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5875,"url":"https:\/\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/research\/performance-reviews\/under-the-brooklyn-bridge\/","url_meta":{"origin":10565,"position":0},"title":"Under the Brooklyn Bridge","author":"Cassie Carter","date":"January 28, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Under the Brooklyn BridgeJim Carroll at the Paris Review Summer RevelBrooklyn Bridge Anchorage (Brooklyn, NY)13 June 2001Review by Cassie Carter Note: This review was written as two separate posts on the\u00a0Jim Carroll email list. 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