Today, Jim Carroll is a highly renowned poet and rock musician. But in the mid-1960s, during his coming-of-age from twelve to fifteen, he was a rebellious teenager making a place and a name for himself on the unforgiving streets of New York City. During those years, he chronicled his experiences, and the result is a diary of unparalleled candor that conveys his alternately hilarious and terrifying teenage existence. Here is Carroll prowling New York City--playing basketball, getting high, getting hooked, and searching for something pure. --lastgasp. com.