Jan 2, 2010

The Basketball Diaries | Critical Overview

By the time The Basketball Diaries was published in a limited-edition book in 1978, and again in wider distribution in 1980, it was already a hit with underground readers. Literary critics soon followed suit. Many of them, such as Jamie James in his 1980 review of the book for American Book Review, discuss the gritty nature of the book. As James notes, it is ‘‘a blow-by-blow account of a season in Hell.’’ James, like many other critics, was impressed by the literary skill of the young Carroll. Says James of the book, it ‘‘is a literary miracle; a description of...