Kasher in the Rye: The True Tale of a White Boy from Oakland Who Became a Drug Addict, Criminal, Mental Patient, and Then Turned 16

In this memoir of high-octane intensity, L.A. standup comic Kasher takes “a drug-filled journey through the harrowing years of my youth.” Insights abound as he wanders through the “creaky secret rooms” of memory, recalling the teen turmoil that followed his chaotic childhood where “Life was the wound.” He begins with the separation of his deaf parents and his mother fleeing New York for the “murderfest” of Oakland, where vitriolic verbal sparring became his weapon in schoolyard conflicts: “I slowly started sharpening my tongue on the whetstone of Oakland Public Schools.” At age 13, he began using LSD: “The bad part about mind-expanding drugs when you are 13 years old is that there isn’t really much to expand upon.” Images by Oakland muralist Ezra Li Eismont illustrate this troubled teen odyssey of friendships, fights, thefts, graffiti tagging, weed, rehab, therapy, and psychiatric lockdown: “One of the coolest things about being locked up in a mental hospital when you’re 13 is... wait, I’m thinking.” Although Kasher in print is not as funny as his hilarious standup routines, he writes with an imaginative flair and a razor-edge ferocity. (Mar. 28)