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

I too grew up as a home-schooled ‘missionary kid’ so I ‘get’ Jonathan Tepper’s brilliant memoir Shooting Up. Tepper’s story about addiction, AIDS and his parents’ work with addicts in Spain in the 1990s is a one-off insanely entertaining and wild account. In fact it’s the most riveting memoir I’ve ever read. Who else recalls his childhood with lines like these? — “As a graduation gift, my father took me to see drug rehabs. It was what we did as a family” — Frank Schaeffer, author of Crazy for God

A bildungsroman with a difference, Shooting Up recounts a young man’s coming of age in the unlikeliest of places, and finds joy, wisdom, and humour in the darkest of moments. Reading this book made me think anew about grace, and gratitude, and the hard roads that take us there — Daniel Swift, author of Bomber County and The Bughouse: The Poetry, Politics and Madness of Ezra Pound

Jonathan Tepper’s gut-wrenching, inspiring memoir Shooting Up immerses you so deeply in its characters that you feel as if you’re living-and suffering-alongside them. Set amid the ravages of the AIDS epidemic in Madrid, this gorgeously crafted coming-of-age story is both luminous and profoundly humane. An unforgettable read that’s impossible to put down. — Joseph Luzzi, author of My Two Italies and In a Dark Wood: What Dante Taught Me About Grief, Healing, and the Mysteries of Love

Shooting Up is an astonishing work that opens your eyes – and your heart – to a whole new world, one that is as beautiful and inspiring as it is gritty and harrowing. Jonathan Tepper is an extraordinarily gifted writer who has somehow managed to write a memoir that is at once heartbreaking, gut-wrenching, and joyous — Amy Chua, Yale Law professor and author of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother and The Golden Gate

Jonathan Tepper’s story is remarkable. From his father’s dramatic conversion to the years pioneering Betel, this is the story of no ordinary family. I am so glad that Jonathan is sharing his extraordinary experience through this account — Nicky Gumbel, pioneer of the Alpha course and former vicar of Holy Trinity Brompton (HTB) in London

It has been one of the privileges of my life to know the Tepper family and witness first-hand the marvel that is Betel, where countless people have found hope, healing, community and new beginnings. Here in his memoir Shooting Up, Jonathan Tepper with great skill, eloquence, humour and provocation, tells us the extraordinary story of Betel. This is not just another read, it’s an event — Simon Ponsonby, priest, author, teacher, St Aldate’s, Oxford

This is a fascinating story, brilliantly told. It recounts the work of two little-known but remarkable American missionaries in the drug-saturated streets of San Blas, Madrid, in an age of AIDS and addiction, told through the eyes of one of their sons. It is gripping, harrowing and tragic – yet somehow also a story of faith, courage and hope — The Rt Revd Dr Graham Tomlin, Director of the Centre for Cultural Witness

Shooting Up is an extraordinary memoir of a unique childhood among heroin addicts during the AIDS epidemic, but it a universal story of love and loss that is powerfully moving. At a time when society is so deeply divided — and faith is a wedge that is often used — it is refreshing to read a missionary kid’s true story of compassion and empathy for the outcasts. The book is also a tale filled with grace and humor in life’s darkest moments — George Stephanopoulos, political commentator and Good Morning America and ABC Sunday News anchor

A terrific story . . . You want an evocative account of the missionary experience? Here it is. A bracing social history of Aids in Spain? It does that too. But if it’s misery you’re after, look elsewhere. This is a memoir full of hope ― The Times

[An] extraordinary coming-of-age story ― Spectator