Shooting Up: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Addiction - Hardcover

by Jonathan Tepper (Author)

"Powerfully moving...an extraordinary memoir." --George Stephanopoulos, political commentator and Good Morning America and ABC Sunday News anchor

In the shadows of Madrid's most notorious drug slum, an American missionary family plants roots among heroin addicts and builds an unlikely church. Shooting Up is Jonathan Tepper's searing memoir of a childhood spent in San Blas, where syringes littered playgrounds and his closest friends were recovering junkies twice his age.

When Elliott and Mary Tepper arrive in 1985 with their four young sons, San Blas is ground zero of Europe's heroin epidemic. While other children play soccer, Jonathan befriends bank robbers and former prostitutes. His heroes aren't athletes but men like Raúl and Jambri, charismatic ex-addicts who transform their lives through the revolutionary drug rehabilitation center the Teppers help found.

What begins as eight men in an apartment becomes Betel, now one of the world's largest drug rehabilitation networks. But this isn't a story of institutional triumph. It's an intimate portrait of radical compassion amid the AIDS crisis, told through the eyes of a boy watching his parents choose the damned over the respectable, witnessing miracles and tragedies in equal measure.

Tepper writes with unflinching honesty about the magnetic pull of the streets, the seductive danger of heroin, and the complicated love between broken people healing together. His prose--elegant yet raw--captures both the squalor of addiction and the stubborn persistence of grace.

This is a memoir about choosing to see beauty in ruins, finding family among outcasts, and learning that the answer to suffering is always more love. It is a story of love and loss, but it is also a love letter to friends, family, and even learning. Part Angela's Ashes, part The Cross and the Switchblade, Shooting Up announces Tepper as a powerful new voice in memoir, one who transforms a harrowing childhood into an unforgettable testament to hope.

Back Jacket

In 1985, Elliott and Mary Tepper moved their four young sons into San Blas, Madrid's most notorious heroin slum--ground zero of Europe's drug epidemic. While other children played soccer, seven-year-old Jonathan was handing out tracts to addicts in syringe-littered parks and befriending bank robbers, former prostitutes, and recovering junkies twice his age.

What began as eight men detoxing in a small apartment grew into Betel, now one of the world's largest drug rehabilitation networks. But Shooting Up isn't an institutional history--it's a boy's-eye view of a radical experiment in compassion during the AIDS crisis, full of unforgettable characters, street danger, and moments of unlikely grace.

Part Angela's Ashes, part The Cross and the Switchblade, Tepper's memoir captures the grit and squalor of addiction alongside the stubborn hope of lives remade. For readers of literary memoir, narrative nonfiction, and stories of resilience, Shooting Up announces Tepper as a powerful new voice in memoir, one who transforms a harrowing childhood into an unforgettable testament to hope.

Author Biography

Jonathan Tepper is the author of several acclaimed financial books, including The Myth of Capitalism. A Rhodes Scholar, he earned degrees in History and Economics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an MLitt from the University of Oxford. Born in the U.S. and raised in Mexico as a young child, Jonathan came of age in Madrid's San Blas neighborhood, where his parents ran one of the country's first drug rehabilitation centers. Shooting Up is his first memoir, offering a deeply personal view of life at the intersection of faith, addiction, and resilience. He and his wife Stacey have a two-year-old who is a human hurricane of curiosity and keeps them busy. Jonathan returns to Madrid as often as he can.