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

By Stephen Elliott
Graywolf Press, $23.00, 224 pages

Clichés like “riveting,” “compelling” and “tour de force” and the awful, awful “unputdownable” are all too often bandied about by book reviewers to describe tomes that really don’t deserve those distinctions. The Adderall Diaries deserves all of those and more. While it is an account of the author’s involvement and coverage of the trial of a husband accused of murdering his wife, it is also a bare-faced, deadly honest window into Mr. Elliott’s soul as he ponders his relationship with his abusive father, his involvement in sado-masochistic sexual relationships, and his struggle with alcohol and drug abuse.

Mr. Elliott’s writing is the stuff that dreams are made of – there’s no fluff here. Just prose clear and sharp enough to draw blood at every touch. In fact, the book resembles nothing so much as the shards of a shattered vase. Mr. Elliott picks up and examines each jagged piece of his life and experience, admiring them for their beauty and lethalness. There’s no way to make the pieces of the vase whole again, but each holds a terrible fascination.

If this book had to be reviewed in one word, it would be this: wow. Just, wow.

Reviewed by Michelle Kerns