The Adderall Diaries: A Memoir of Moods, Masochism, and Murder [Hardcover]

Stephen Elliott (Author)

Book Description

Release date: September 1, 2009

In the spring of 2007, a brilliant computer programmer named Hans Reiser stands accused of murdering his estranged wife, Nina. Despite a mountain of circumstantial evidence against him, he proclaims his innocence. The case takes a twist when Nina’s former lover, and Hans’s former best friend, Sean Sturgeon, confesses to eight unrelated murders that no one has ever heard of.

At the time of Sturgeon’s confession, Stephen Elliot is paralyzed by writer’s block, in the thrall of Adderall dependency, and despondent over the state of his romantic life. But he is fascinated by Sturgeon, whose path he has often crossed in San Francisco’s underground S&M scene. What kind of person, he wonders, confesses to a murder he likely did not commit? One answer is, perhaps, a man like Elliott’s own father.

So begins a 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 the self. Tough, tender, and unflinchingly honest, it is the breakout book by one of the most daring writers of his generation.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

As a writer stymied by past success, writers block, substance abuse, relationship problems and a serious set of father issues, Elliott's cracked-out chronicle of a bizarre murder trial amounts to less than the sum of its parts. Not long into the 2007 trial of programmer Hans Reiser, accused of murdering his wife, the defendant's friend Sean Sturgeon obliquely confessed to several murders (though not the murder of Reiser's wife). Elliott, caught up in the film-ready twist and his tenuous connection to Sturgeon (they share a BDSM social circle), makes a gonzo record of the proceedings. The result is a scattered, self-indulgent romp through the mind of a depressive narcissist obsessed with his insecurities and childhood traumas. Elliott is an undeniably good writer, but his voice has more to do with amphetamines than the author himself or the trial at hand. Elliott's frustration with himself is contagious; any readers expecting a true crime will be bewildered, and those familiar with Elliott (My Girlfriend Comes to the City and Beats Me Up) will find more (or less) of the same.
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Review

"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

"Brilliant, memorable prose. . . an unforgettable read." —Foreword

"You don't just read The Adderall Diaries; you fall right into them. You read as if you are a few words behind the writer, trying to catch up, to find out what happens, to yell at him that he's doing a great job. And he is. It's a brilliant book." —Roddy Doyle

"The Adderall Diaries is a startling and original concoction, an irresistible melding of reportage and memoir and reconstruction. This is Stephen Elliott's best book, perfectly suited to his gifts as a seeker, as a storyteller, as a poet of wounds, unwelcome and otherwise." —Sam Lipsyte

"The Adderall Diaries is phenomenal. With jittery finesse and a reformed tweaker's eye for detail, Stephen Elliott captures the terrifying, hilarious, heart-strangling reality of a life whose scorched-earth physical and psycho-emotional dimensions no one could have invented—they absolutely had to be lived. By all rights, the author should either be dead or chewing his fingers in a bus station. Instead, he may well have written the memoir of an entire generation." —Jerry Stahl

"I felt like a voyeur reading Stephen Elliott's memoir—what is shocking and unbearable to most of us is commonplace to him. Although a murder trial provides the structure for this book, it is really about the strangeness of life, about things that don't make sense and never will, about lessons that don't get learned, and ultimately about what we can and can't know about ourselves and others. Reading The Adderall Diaries is like taking a step toward the edge of a cliff so you can peer down and imagine what it might be like to slip and fall. Normally we shudder and step back. Stephen Elliott jumps, and his harrowing, riveting memoir convinces you to follow him vicariously." —Amy Tan

"The Adderall Diaries begins like the ocean, seemingly able to take in everything—prize fights to Paris Hilton—until the ocean forms into a river, making its way through unmapped territories—a murder, an absent father—and finally this river is distilled into one precious teardrop. Stephen Elliott is one of those 'people who keep searching when everything is dark'—I don't know a more hauntingly fearless writer, and this is an immediate, visceral, and ultimately beautiful book." —Nick Flynn

 

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Graywolf Press (September 1, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1555975380
• ISBN-13: 978-1555975388
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (30 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #536,034 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 26 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Edgy, erratic, and often disheartening, yet an absolutely riveting read September 10, 2009

By L. A. Kane TOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

Once one has mastered the rules, it becomes possible for a gifted few to transcend them. If you ask accomplished musicians, for example, they will tell you that it takes more than 10,000 hours of technical emersion before their musicianship can truly be considered art. In The Adderall Diaries, author Stephen Elliott shatters the strictures of conventional writing to create a poignant chronicle that remains with the reader long after he or she has finished the work. It is edgy, erratic, and often disheartening, yet absolutely riveting. As the author himself states, "to write about oneself honestly one has to admit a certain inconsistency and randomness that would never be tolerated in even the best of novels."

Events are not presented in chronological order, yet the narrative is understandable and relatively easy enough to navigate nevertheless. While not for everyone, particularly those with tender sensibilities, this book is a remarkable read. Those who peruse its pages will be rewarded by the creativity, insight, and pure art-form that comprise Elliot's writing. The subject matter is incredibly disturbing, yet like Adderall, a Schedule D amphetamine from whence the author's addiction lent the book its name, once you fall into the story it is extraordinarily challenging to break free.

In some ways a real-life version of John O'Brien's heartrending Leaving Las Vegas, Elliot's book was supposed to have been a true-crime drama, yet it morphed into an autobiography along the way. The backdrop is the nearly six month trial of Hans Reiser, a brilliant but curmudgeonly Linux programmer, who was accused of killing his estranged wife Nina. Despite hiring a respected attorney, Hans' narcissistic personality, peculiar behavior, and condescending manner undermine his case before the jury.... The proceedings take a bizarre twist when Sean Sturgeon, Nina's former lover and Hans' closest friend, enters the picture. A BDSM (bondage and discipline, sadism masochism) aficionado who traveled in the same twisted circles as Elliot before becoming a born-again Christian, Sean not only confessed to eight (7 ˝ really) unrelated murders but also, according to Hans, played a considerable role in Nina's disappearance as well. As the trial began, her body had not been found.

Regarding Sturgeon, the author relates, "I've heard of him digging a knife in his own arm, carving RAGE, or standing naked in the middle of a room while several women strike at him with leather straps, his blood pooling at his feet. But, that was before he became a Christian. Now he goes to church every week, volunteers at the soup kitchen on weekends... I'm sitting across from a man who may be a murderer, but I can't tell." In an extraordinary coincidence, Elliot's own father also confessed to a murder in his memoirs that he may or may not have committed. Unlike fiction, truth really does not always have to make sense.

The truth of Elliot's life is that it has been crammed with heartbreak and misfortune. Tortured by a father who beat and intimidated him, he watched his mother slowly die from multiple sclerosis as a youth, emptying her urine bucket as she lay atrophied upon the couch too weak to care, before running away after she passed on. Shuffling amongst group homes, he lost four close childhood friends to overdose or suicide in six years. Ultimately he found release in drugs and violent sex, working as a stripper, a drug dealer, a professor, and a writer, among other things. While these experiences are nearly as painful to read as they must have been to endure, he has learned to transcend his anguish to write about relationships, love, and loss with brilliant, memorable prose. One sentence alone makes for poignant example, "But I don't know about Mike yet, the taste of gun like a mouthful of coins, his wife, five months pregnant with a second child, stopping in front of the door with no idea what awaits her inside."

Stephen Elliot is the author of seven books, including the critically acclaimed novel Happy Baby. His writing has been featured in mainstream magazines such as Esquire and GQ, and newspapers like the New York Times, as well as unconventional publications such as The Best American Erotica and Best Sex Writing. A guy who intimately understands depression, addiction, and life's bitter challenges, he tackles thorny subjects in interesting, meaningful, and, ultimately, enlightening ways. His newest work, The Adderall Diaries, is an unforgettable read.

Lawrence Kane
Author of [...], among others

Note: originally reviewed in the Sep/Oct '09 issue of ForeWord Magazine Read more ›

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Great Book that stands out among the glut of memoir October 3, 2009

By rob roberge

Format:Hardcover

Stephen Elliott has created a work of art from some dissimilar sources as writer's block, an Adderall problem, the loss of friends back home, the pull of a murder trial where he's tangentially aligned with some of the players involved and, of course, his own issues with love and intimacy and his difficult relationship with his estranged father.

It sounds like a lot of plates to keep spinning and Elliott does it with seeming effortlessness (which is never effortless when you try to write such things). The pace never lags, and the compelling, beautifully written voice never lets you down.

His work has an admirable honesty, lovely, sharp, intelligent prose, and a great ability to bring the reader into the emotional landscape of the text.

I could go on, but the short version is that this is one of the best books I've read in a couple of years and I'd HIGHLY recommend that you read it too. 5 stars.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A haunting memoir that has stuck with me.... September 7, 2009

By Paul Zakrzewski

Format:Hardcover

I just finished this book and feel like I've been submerged in another's life for the past week. The book blurber (Nick Flynn?) who said that Stephen Elliott's ADDERALL DIARIES starts like a big ocean and hones its force to a narrow channel had it just right. The murder trial of a highly narcissistic computer programmer named Hans Reisner gives Elliott the opportunity to dive into his own past - a complicated relationship with his own violent and narcissistic father, the loss of his mother at 13, a bleak life of early suicide attempts, drugs, and group homes, and his current addiction to both Adderall and S/M relationships. Elliott writes out of a lot of understanding for both himself and others - and without judgment - which is why the sections about his love relationships, and S/M in particular, ring true. (Elliott reminds me of Dorothy Allison in this regard).

I highly recommend this book...and for those of you who've read it, you can see Elliott's adventures with his father aren't over. Just consider the review of "Gladiator" below...

14 of 20 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars I thought it was just okay. November 10, 2009

By Jan

Format:Hardcover

Unlike the other reviews here, I didn't think that The Adderal Diaries explored the issues to any real depth. If Elliot was truly despondent over the state of his romantic life, I didn't feel it. The S & M issue is a very adult topic that I thought Elliot dealt with on a PG13 level. It just didn't answer my question of, "Why do people DO this?" I also didn't understand how he was able to get the meds from a doctor? The writing seemed a bit shallow to me.

Hats off, though, to Graywolf Press; a local (Minneapolis) independent, non-profit publisher who is holding their own amongst the big house publishing companies.

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Powerful material in the hands of a true writer.... September 8, 2009

By Paul LaRosa (www.paullarosa.com)

Format:Hardcover

I sat next to Stephen for much of the Hans Reiser trial so I can tell you that he's right on the money with this descriptions and behind the scenes commentary. I have not, of course, sat next to him on his life's adventure. It shocks me but I greatly admire Stephen's ability to stand back and put it all out there for everyone to see.

It takes a terrific writer to weave Stephen's story in with the trial but somehow he's done it...and it's a page turner. I was racing to see what happened next. Great book.

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Raw, Self-Examined Life September 1, 2009

By Jack M. Walter

Format:Hardcover

This is an unconventional and amazing book. What started out as a quest by the author to investigate a possible homicide turns into a memoir in which the author subjects himself and his past to a blistering examination. The writing is laced with intense events and realizations, and it's quite an experience, but not for the timid of heart. This is very brave work, and I recommend it highly.