Living at the Movies
New York: Grossman Publishers, 1973. 1st Edition. Octavo, publisher's orange cloth, spine gilt, orange endpapers, top edge stained orange, original illustrated dust jacket.
First edition of American writer and punk rocker Jim Carroll’s first "aboveground" publication. Best known for his cult classic memoir The Basketball Diaries, detailing his heroin addiction in high school, Carroll began writing poetry when he was 15-years-old. Earning the attention of the downtown literati after reading at poetry events, he published two chapbooks and work in New York School poetry journals such as Anne Waldman’s Angel Hair and Ted Berrigan’s C along with the Paris Review and Poetry. His first book published by a mainstream publisher, Living at the Movies comprises several of his hallucinatory and vivid verses about sex, drugs, friendship, and love written in his teens and early twenties. The book earned him comparisons to Arthur Rimbaud and Frank O'Hara by Ted Berrigan and helped cement his reputation as a major new voice. Dust jacket designed by Pop artist Larry Rivers. Light sunning to top edges of boards; unclipped dust jacket lightly sunned at spine, with age toning to verso. Near fine. Item #7340
$375.00