off the rim: jim carroll's 'the petting zoo'

As told by Thomas Mallon in his review of The Petting Zoo, the first and only novel by Basketball Diaries memoirist Jim Carroll, describes the work as ‘densely hallucinogenic’ stemmed from a creative ego and put together "posthumously". Mallon believes that Carroll’s last work before his death was an unnecessary and somewhat lackluster supplement to his much more intriguing works prior to The Petting Zoo. Through the gritty window of The Basketball Diaries, Carroll showed his life as a teenager in New York City in the 60s, illustrating a life of heroin addiction and struggle. In retrospect to this, Mallon insists that his recent work lacks the honest realism that his previous work harnessed.