Stephen Elliott Reading

Author Stephen Elliott Will read from his brilliant and highly praised new memoir The Adderall Diaries at Antenna!  Free and open to the public.  Drinks will be served!

ABOUT THE ADDERALL DIARIES:

In the spring of 2007, a brilliant and well-known computer programmer named Hans Reiser stands accused of murdering his beautiful, estranged wife, Nina. Despite a mountain of circumstantial evidence against him, he proclaims his innocence, and the body is yet to be found. The case takes an unusual twist when Nina’s former lover, and Hans’ former best friend, Sean Sturgeon, confesses to eight unrelated murders that no one has ever heard of.
When a reporter contacts Stephen Elliott about Sturgeon—whose path he has crossed in San Francisco’s underground S&M scene—Elliott is paralyzed by writer’s block, in the thrall of Adderall dependency, and despondent over his inability to maintain a stable romantic relationship. The reporter’s questions spur Elliott to rethink Sturgeon, and to wonder exactly what kind of person confesses to murders he likely did not commit? Perhaps a man like Elliott’s own father.

So begins a brave and riveting journey through a neon landscape of false confessions, self-medication, and torturous sex.  Set against the backdrop of a nation at war, in the declining years of the Silicon Valley tech boom and the dawn of Paris Hilton’s celebrity, The Adderall Diaries is at once a gripping account of a murder trial and a scorching investigation of self.  Tough, tender, and unflinchingly honest, it is a breakout book by one of the most daring writers of his generation.

PRAISE FOR STEPHEN ELLIOTT  and
THE ADDERALL DIARIES:

“Elliott ruthlessly flays the truth past the point of tears, to heights of consciousness achievable only through the masochistic act of writing. Elliott may be writing under the influence, but it’s the influence of genius.”
—VANITY FAIR

“Stephen Elliott’s superb, sprawling meta-memoir might be just what the genre needs to salvage it from the legacy of James Frey.”
—TIME OUT NEW YORK, five of five stars

“Nakedly manipulative and all but impossible to resist….[The first sentence] sucked me in twice, because the moment I revisited The Adderall Diaries (intending only to select quotes for this review) I immediately started reading the book again.”
—THE BOSTON GLOBE

“A refined, beautiful work of art…deserves a place on the shelf next to such classics of uninhibited American introspection as On the Road and A Fan’s Notes.”
—KIRKUS, starred review