In his latest memoir, “Apology to the Young Addict,” Cal State San Bernardino English professor James Brown explores the journey of finding a new path in life after years of struggling with addiction, among other issues.  
 
“Apology to the Young Addict,” which was released March 3, is the third book in his triptych about addiction from youth to the age of 60. His other two critically acclaimed memoirs are “The Los Angeles Diaries” and “This River.”
 
Pre-publication reviews in Kirkus Review describe his latest book as “Tough, meditative, realist prose … well crafted, tight and searing,” and Booklist states that it’s “Incredibly powerful and moving.”
 
In a press release by Counterpoint, the publishing company describes his book as “haunting and hopeful”:
 
“Now sixty – with years of sobriety under his belt – and the father of three sons, James Brown (author of The Los Angeles Diaries) writes about finding a new path in life, how he has made peace with the family whose ghosts have haunted him so vociferously, and helping the next generation of addicts overcome their disease. Opening with the tragic tale of an elderly couple consumed by opioid addiction and moving through the horrors of a Las Vegas massacre, these essays draw on Brown’s personal journey of recovery to illustrate how an individual life, in all its messiness and charm, can offer a blueprint for healing. Haunting and hopeful, ‘Apology to the Young Addict’ is a reinvention of the recovery memoir and a lasting testimony from a master writing at his peak.”
 
“James Brown’s ‘Apology to the Young Addict’ may be the closest linguistic facsimile to what it’s like to be in recovery: haunted, growing old, somehow nor yet world-weary, but always a razor’s breadth – one day at a time – away from chaos,” said Gina Frangello in a review, author of “Every Kind of Wanting” and “A Life in Men.”
 
Brown’s book, she says, “accomplishes at last a staggeringly rare mercy – on the ghosts of memory, the ravages of disease, the brutal hypocrisies of religion, and finally – most shockingly – on himself.”
Brown recently recorded a podcast and YouTube interview for The Addiction Podcast: Point of No Return, which will air in March.
 
Additionally, Brown is scheduled March 3 for The Lee Callahan Show, Jack-FM/Seattle, Wash., which will also air in Seattle on KISS Talk on 105.1 KISS FM, The Connection on 95.7, KUBE 93.3, The Sunday Times on 102.5 KZOK, The Sunday Times on 96.5 Jack FM, and Get in the Game on 1090 AM KJR. And on March 4, Brown is scheduled to be interviewed on The Paul Miller Show, WPHM-AM/Port Huron, Mich., and The Jane Popp Show, AM/FM Talk Radio, KAHI/Sacramento, Calif. 
 
On April 17, Brown will be reading from and discussing his new book at Hope International University in Fullerton, Calif.  
 
Brown is the recipient of a National Endowment of the Arts Literature Fellowship, the Nelson Algren Literary Award in short fiction, and the Chesterfield Film Fellowship in Screenwriting from Amblin and Universal Studios. His work has appeared in GQ, Esquire, The New York Times Magazine, Los Angeles Times Magazine, Ploughshares, New England Review and many other publications. He has also written many screenplays for major studios and independent production companies.
 
Brown received his MFA from UC Irvine and his bachelor’s from San Francisco State.