Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Carroll, Jim - Booklist (review date 15 October 1998)

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Booklist (review date 15 October 1998)

SOURCE: A review of Void of Course, in Booklist, Vol. 95, No. 4, October 15, 1998, p. 389.

[In the following brief review, the critic lauds Carroll's poetic ability in Void of Course.]

Carroll, experienced with heroin himself, offers belated advice to the corpse of Kurt Cobain in the volume-opening “8 Fragments for Kurt Cobain”: the price of genius mixed with that of fame makes a fatal cocktail, “which starts out as a kiss / And follows like a curse.” Desperation and desire emanate from Carroll’s verse [in Void of Course], but with a certain poignancy, as if these words just have to be said. Carroll exhumes his life and loves, and his candor at times startles. He can shift gears, from a dirge like the Cobain piece to a comical, though no less serious, aside on the avant-garde, Buddha, or his father’s last words (“Promise me that you’ll never eat / Any of that...

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. Seamus Cooney (review date 1 November 1973)
   2. Gerard Malanga (review date November 1974)
   3. Jamie James (review date February 1980)
   4. Chet Flippo (essay date 26 January 1981)
   5. Publishers Weekly (review date 4 April 1986)
   6. Daniel L. Guillory (review date 15 April 1986)
   7. Christopher Lehmann-Haupt (review date 9 July 1987)
   8. Peter Delacorte (review date 12 July 1987)
   9. Kirkus Reviews (review date 15 May 1987)
   10. William Hochswender (review date 18 October 1987)
   11. Jim Carroll with Thomas Gladysz (interview date 1987)
   12. Cassie Carter (essay date Winter 1996)
   13. Publishers Weekly (review date 28 September 1998)
   14. Booklist (review date 15 October 1998)
   15. Jim Carroll with Suzan Alteri (interview date 13–19 January 2000)
4. Further Reading
5. Copyright