Get Off

The micro-genre of the coming-of-age, queer junkie confessional memoir has been graced with a new entry in its impressive pantheon. In Get Off, Scott Alderman regales the reader with one harrowing (and piss-in-the-pants funny) tale after another in this ripe, if slender, page-turner. William Burroughs' Junky, John Rechy's City of Night and Jim Carroll's Basketball Diaries all come to mind as Alderman narrates his journey from the teenage wasteland of 1970s Long Island suburbia to the city's mean streets to rehab to reinvention as a successful jazz impresario. This is the voice of a natch'l born raconteur with the courage to venture to the darkest spaces of the human heart with uncanny compassion and deep honesty. - Oliver Trager, Author of Dig Infinity! Scott Alderman's book is the story of a scrappy genius, a scenester connector, navigating the rock and jazz music worlds of D.C. and New York, all the while riding the highs and lows of drug addiction and the pain and confusion of a closeted life. A fast-paced portrait of a young life lived. - Rachel Lindsay, Author of RX GET OFF is genuine and honest and powerful. The writing has incredible momentum and sustained movement, really conveying the velocity and chaos of the experiences; there's a real feeling of life happening. Even when the book veers into the extreme, the voice is open and matter-of-fact, which leaves the reader free to react. This is an intense and rewarding memoir. - Vivian Helller, Author of City Beneath Us Prepare yourself for a rollicking, shocking, and inspiring story of life's lowest lows and greatest heights in Get Off: The Sordid Youth and Unlikely Survival of a Queer Junkie Wonder Boy by Scott Alderman. This tell-all read is graphic and unabashed, detailing a life of sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll from both extremes: the ecstatic and the tragic. Unsentimental but sincere, Alderman is able to get past the romance of his own tall tales to pry out wisdom and meaning, as well as difficult lessons that ring timeless for youth of any generation. - Self-Publishing Review, 1/2