About the Book
"New York City is the center of the universe, and there is no New York City without Jesse Malin." -Billie Joe Armstrong, Green Day
JESSE MALIN IS A "GRITTY TROUBADOUR OF THE STREETS" (Rolling Stone) and "fearless storyteller" (Uncut) who tours internationally, and collaborates with artists like Bruce Springsteen, Green Day, Bob Weir from the Grateful Dead, and Lucinda Williams. Malin went from playing CBGB at age thirteen to Madison Square Garden in his twenties. His first solo album, The Fine Art of Self Destruction, which was hailed as "a masterpiece rising from the pain of a difficult youth" (Classic Rock), launched his long and successful solo career.
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 the standard rock biography. Although music is at the core of Malin's soul, the memoir 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 lifelong 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-twenty-eight artists, from Jack Antonoff to Bruce Springsteen, 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 hosted by actors Michael Imperioli and Mary-Louise Parker at New York's Beacon Theatre. Malin's sold-out theatrical production, Silver Manhattan: A Musical Memoir of Survival, is debuting at the Gramercy Theatre in New York in September 2025.
About the Author :
JESSE MALIN is a "gritty troubadour of the streets" (Rolling Stone) who tours internationally and collaborates with artists like Bruce Springsteen, Green Day, Bob Weir from the Grateful Dead, and Lucinda Williams. Malin went from playing CBGB at age thirteen to Madison Square Garden in his early twenties; from crashing the stage with his friends during Fear's infamous Saturday Night Live performance to playing his own songs on The Tonight Show and CBS Saturday Morning. His body of work has garnered praise from Rolling Stone, Uncut, Paste, American Songwriter, Spin, the Times (UK), Classic Rock Magazine, No Depression, Pitchfork, Brooklyn Vegan, and many more. His autobiographical play, Jesse Malin's Silver Manhattan, debuted at the Gramercy Theatre in 2025.
Review :
Almost Grown: A New York Memoir by Malin with Debra Devi is a riveting, rapid read. It is teeming with stories from Malin's earliest memories as a child in New York and New Jersey in the early 1970s to his teenage band Heart Attack in the 1980s to later bands like D Generation and his current solo career . . . Almost Grown is the latest highlight in a remarkable career and a companion to Malin's albums. It is required reading for anyone interested in Malin, New York, its music scene, or the music business in general.-- "The Most Endangered Species"
Almost Grown is billed as 'a New York memoir, ' and that is about as accurate a description as there could be. Jesse Malin's adventures through the city during the 1970s and '80s take the reader through hallowed New York music landmarks, rubbing shoulders with legends with almost comic frequency . . . Malin's everyman persona, flair for storytelling, and affable voice regale the reader with snapshots of a wild upbringing, rise, and reinvention.-- "PopMatters"
In his new memoir, Almost Grown . . . Malin tells the story of his remarkable life, and all the rock and roll saints--from bold names to cult heroes--who've helped him stay connected to the spirit of the city, and of the music, that still fuels him.-- "Icon Magazine"
Almost Grown is many things. At first blush, it's Jesse Malin's life story . . . The book is also a love letter to the desperate New York City of the 70s and 80s, a paved maze of rats, manhole steam, danger, graffiti, and boiling tensions, lit by neon hope and flickering streetlit squalor. The book almost reads like the notes to a lost Scorsese film . . . It's a history, filled with cool info nuggets and anecdotes . . . Most of all: Almost Grown is important. Every music school should assign this to their teenage students. Jesse tells an essential story of the fragility and randomness of life, of the benefits of sidestepping the norms and the rules, of the glamour that can be found in the dingiest ruts. Of the need for persistence, passion, and stubbornness. Of knowing when to rebel and when to roll with it.-- "Support Life and Music"
Queens native and street-level rock troubadour Jesse Malin has a story that demands to be told in full . . . Almost Grown . . . traces Malin's life from a scrappy kid in a broken home to CBGB at thirteen, Madison Square Garden in his twenties, and collaborations with Bruce Springsteen, Billie Joe Armstrong, and Lucinda Williams. It reads less like a rock memoir and more like The Basketball Diaries with a guitar slung over its shoulder.-- "That Eric Alper"
[M]uch of [his memoir] is devoted to growing up in New York and New Jersey and the many people, 'the beautiful characters, ' he has met and lost along the way . . . Almost Grown is full of anecdotes of life lived on the edge and opening for or touring with the likes of Green Day and the Ramones.-- "Booklist"
Almost Grown stands toe to toe with The Basketball Diaries as a story about growing up in New York--Lucinda Williams
