Apology to the Young Addict: A Memoir

by James Brown

Overview

Husband, addict, father, skeptic. Now sixty—with years of sobriety under his belt—the celebrated author of The Los Angeles Diaries and This River returns with his most moving work yet.

Opening with the tragic tale of an elderly couple consumed by opioid addiction and moving through the horrors of a Las Vegas massacre to the loss of a beloved sponsor, these essays draw on Brown’s personal journey to illustrate how an individual life, in all its messiness and charm, can offer a blueprint for healing. From writing about finding a new path in life while raising three sons, to making peace with the family whose ghosts have haunted him, and helping the next generation of addicts overcome their disease, this haunting and hopeful book is a reinvention of the recovery story and a lasting testimony from the master of the modern memoir.

“The third panel in Brown’s masterwork triptych on addiction from youth to sixty, Apology to the Young Addict also accomplishes at last a staggeringly rare mercy—on the ghosts of memory, the ravages of disease, the brutal hypocrisies of religion, and finally—most shockingly—on himself.” —Gina Frangello, author of Every Kind of Wanting and A Life in Men

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781640092860
Publisher:	Catapult
Publication date:	03/03/2020
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 8.30(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

James Brown is the author of the critically acclaimed memoirs The Los Angeles Diaries and This River. He is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship and the Nelson Algren Literary Award in short fiction. Brown’s work has appeared in GQ, The New York Times Magazine, Los Angeles Times Magazine, Ploughshares, New England Review, and many other publications. He lives in Lake Arrowhead, California.

Table of Contents

The Good Neighbors 3

A Real Disease 33

The Call 47

Iron 61

This Little Girl 67

The Motions 73

The Last House on the Block 91

Leaving Las Vegas 115

Apology to the Young Addict 143

A God of My Understanding 153

This Little Boy 177

Seasons 183

Bone by Bone 207

Stories 227

Acknowledgments 235

Editorial Reviews

03/16/2020

Novelist Brown (The Los Angeles Diaries) depicts his addiction and subsequent long-term sobriety in this riveting memoir. Brown and his wife, Freddie, were retired and living in sleepy Lake Arrowhead, Calif., before developing opiate addictions that stemmed from prescription painkillers. Within three years, they transformed from cheerful retirees into desperate addicts who were evicted from their home. Subsequent recollections depict the anger and rage Brown felt about the emotional scars of his upbringing and addiction. To diffuse those feelings, he exercises (“Physical exertion takes me out of myself”); acts as a sponsor to others in recovery; lectures at colleges, prisons, and recovery groups; and reclaims Christianity after years of atheism. In a vivid flashback (and the inspiration for its title), Brown and a fellow heroin user are interrupted while shooting up by the man’s young son—who later becomes a user. Brown, now clean for over a decade, remains determined to help his fellow addicts—though he expresses frustration and disgust with them as they slip and slide. Readers will be drawn in by Brown’s gritty and intense narrative. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

A Good Morning America Must-Read Book of the Month

"A sensationally-written memoir about the effects of alcoholism and addiction on family as told by the dad of three grown sons." ––Zibby Owens, 1 of 30 Most Anticipated Books of the Year

"James Brown's Apology to the Young Addict does not just breathe new life into addiction writing, it does so with enough grace, heart, and grab-you-by-the-throat style to transcend the genre and qualify as genuine literature. These beautiful essays will serve as balm for survivors of the opioid crisis, those still struggling to make it out, and pretty much anyone else trying to stay sane in these insane times. Prose-wise—with all due respect to his late namesake—James Brown has earned his title as the Godfather of Junkie Soul." —Jerry Stahl, author of Permanent Midnight

"James Brown, already among the best memoirists in America, has surpassed his own high standards in Apology to the Young Addict. This superbly written book is about addiction, yes, but it is equally a book about courage, perseverance, love, desperation, recovery, and healing. More than anything, it is a book that reminds us, again and again, of the power of storytelling. In the pages of this heartbreaking but oddly exhilarating memoir, Brown deploys his narrative skills with precision, grace, complexity, and masterfully controlled intensity of emotion. What a fine piece of work." -Tim O'Brien, author of The Things They Carried

From the Publisher

2020-01-19
A dark yet hope-infused look back at the long-term transformations fueled by an addict’s recovery.

In his previous memoirs—particularly The Los Angeles Diaries and This River—Brown focused on his bleak, destructive days as a substance abuser. While those experiences remain with him, he has been sober for years. While optimistic, he is still attuned to patterns of addiction surrounding him, and earlier experience with violence and desperation left him sensing the world’s fragility. The author explores these themes in terse, punchy pieces that often feel like an essay collection, but Brown’s passionate perspective provides a throughline. Much of the material is memorably well crafted, tight, and searing, including the title piece, which captures Brown’s guilt at learning of a former drug buddy’s son’s plunging down the same path: “What the older recovering addict has to offer the younger, active addict is the hope and promise of change through example and nothing more.” Brown explores the horrible juxtaposition of his reunion with his grown sons in Las Vegas and the Mandalay Bay mass shooting, and he weighs the gambling-addict shooter’s embrace of evil against the backdrop of the city’s ordinary temptations. Another striking piece utilizes second person to take readers through the excruciating days (and later triumphant weeks) of withdrawal. Brown’s personal history fuels the prose with compassion and near amazement at his own fortunate survival, and he builds a compelling universe of characters. The author details his engagement with 12-step programs and their simple, mysterious commitments, reflects on his experiences reaching out to hardened young prisoners in California prisons, and considers the guilt he still feels for plunging into addiction. “I spend a decade going in and out of the rooms of A.A.,” he writes, “along with an occasional stint in rehab, before I’m able to broach that ridiculous idea of God.”

Tough, meditative, realist prose creates a worthy addition to the crowded field of (post-) addiction memoirs.

Kirkus Reviews