LAWRENCE — Former Andover High School teacher Richard Farrell will speak about his critically acclaimed memoir, "What's Left of Us," at 2 p.m., Sunday, March 7, as part of the White Fund Enlightenment Series presented by Northern Essex Community College at its Lawrence campus.
The memoir touches on Farrell's violent and abusive youth in Lowell, but focuses on a particular period in his life — his final days in a rehab for heroin addiction.
In graphic detail, Farrell describes the physical, emotional and mental toll that his drug problem took on his life.
At the lecture, Farrell will discuss his own story, as well as the art of the memoir in a presentation titled "Story Truth and Happening Truth: The Line that Blurs Reality."
This memoir wasn't Farrell's first foray into writing. The adjunct professor of English at UMass Lowell also co-authored the Boston Globe best-seller "A Criminal and an Irishman: The Inside Story of the Mob-IRA Connection."
Farrell also produced and directed the 1995 documentary "High on Crack Street," which aired on HBO and received Columbia University's DuPont Award. That film touches on his own personal history with heroin in Lowell.
Farrell also was involved with the feature film "The Fighter," made last year in Lowell with Mark Wahlberg and Christian Bale, playing boxer "Irish" Micky Ward and his brother Dickie Eklund, respectively.
In the film, the talented boxer Eklund is brought down by his own drug problems. He gets clean and trains his brother for a chance at a championship title.
Farrell, who featured the real Eklund in his 1995 documentary, appears in "The Fighter" as himself.
IF YOU GO
WHAT: "Story Truth and Happening Truth: The Line that Blurs Reality"
WHEN: Sunday, March 7, at 2 p.m.
WHERE: White Fund Room, Louise Haffner Fournier Education Center, Northern Essex Community College, 78 Amesbury St., in Lawrence
HOW: Free and open to the public.
