Sometimes ‘know thyself’ is a liability

Stephen Elliott takes himself to his limits in his bio of drug dependency, sex, abuse and homelessness

 

 

A good book is often a labor of blood, sweat and tears and the product of a string of sleepless nights. Nobody seems to have told Stephen Elliott that he didn’t necessarily have to take all of that literally.  

In a series of memoirs and novels closely based upon his own life, Elliott has tackled the blood and sweat of BDSM sex — bondage,  discipline, sadism and masochism — as well as the sad emptiness of parental abuse and homelessness. In his latest, “The Adderall Diaries,” Elliott chronicles the wide-eyed frenzy of his prescription drug dependency and sets it amidst the unfolding real-life plot of a murder trial he finds himself investigating.

The process of writing each book, he says, allows him to get to know himself better, which is crucial for memoirists. “The books that are memoirs that fail are because the people writing them haven’t explored far enough,” he says. “They think it’s enough just not to lie. Honesty is only based on how well you know yourself.”

Each successive exploration into his twisted bio-graphy was like a gateway drug. “It’s kind of like nobody shoots heroin without smoking a cigarette,” he says. “And nobody shoots a porno without first taking photos.”

Stephen Elliot
Tomorrow, 7 p.m.
Happy Ending reading series
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