In my usual once-removed, insufficiently bookish way, I felt I came to know author/poet Jim Carroll not from his writings but through the 1995 film adaptation of The Basketball Dairies. I’m thinking particularly of that harrowing scene when Leonardo DiCaprio, who played the teenaged Carroll, wailed and screamed in the hallway outside his mother’s apartment, begging to be let in. That scene sank in deep. 14 years ago and I still play it in my head from time to time.
Author/poet Jim Carroll
Carroll died last Friday at age 59 of a heart attack. He was reportedly working at his desk working when he died. My condolences to family, friends and fans. Quality, not quantity.
