Almost Grown
A New York Memoir
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- Pre-Order
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- Expected Apr 7, 2026
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- $14.99
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- Pre-Order
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
A literary memoir and coming-of-age story exploring native New Yorker Jesse Malin’s boundless creativity and triumph over daunting challenges, both physical and emotional.
ALMOST GROWN IS A RAW, HONEST, AND OFTEN FUNNY ACCOUNT of how a hyperactive kid from Queens made his dreams come true—and the hustlers, sweethearts, misfits, and lifelong friends he met along the way. With Malin as its streetwise narrator, the book has more in common with The Basketball Diaries or Just Kids than with a standard rock memoir. Although music is at the core of Malin’s soul, Almost Grown welcomes the reader into the tumultuous inner world of a boy from a broken home determined to create a life he could love.
In 2023, Malin was struck with a rare spinal stroke that paralyzed him from the waist down. The longtime runner and vegetarian went public with this news—and his fierce resolve to walk again—in an interview with Rolling Stone. The story was picked up by the New York Times, People, CNN, Variety, the Los Angeles Times, and other outlets worldwide. The massive outpouring of love and support culminated in the release of Silver Patron Saints: The Songs of Jesse Malin—with twenty-eight celebrated artists covering his songs to raise money for his recovery. On December 1 and 2, 2024, Malin gave his first public performances since his stroke, taking the stage for two sold-out concerts at New York’s Beacon Theatre.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Singer-songwriter Malin debuts with a gritty chronicle of his artistic coming-of-age. Born to 22-year-old parents in 1967 Queens, Malin recounts a turbulent but loving childhood shaped by music and instability. After his mother took Malin and his sister to live with their grandparents to escape their father's alcoholic outbursts, Malin channeled his restless energy into punk music, forming the band Heart Attack as a teenager and taking any gig he could land. Encounters with industry figures including Rick Rubin and Little Richard lend color to the account, as do run-ins with the likes of Bruce Springsteen, Joe Strummer, and Bob Weir. Though Malin details a hard-partying milieu, he insists he was "too afraid to try drugs," making him both a participant in and wary observer of late-20th-century New York City hedonism. The narrative is framed by Malin's survival of a rare spinal stroke in 2023 that sent him to Buenos Aires for stem-cell therapy and arduous rehab—an ordeal that captures the resilience he displays several times throughout the memoir. Malin's prose style is raw, and he loves a name-drop, but his affectionate portrait of a vanished New York and the community that sustained him will resonate with artistically minded readers. It's a tuneful self-portrait.
