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Shooting Up
- Author
- Jonathan Tepper
- Narrator
- Jonathan Tepper
- Publisher
- Little, Brown Book Group
- Publish Date
- 19 February 2026
- Run Time
- 6 hours 58 minutes
- Format
- Audiobook
- Genre
- Memoirs
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What to expect
Born into a family of American missionaries driven by unwavering faith, Jonathan's home became a sanctuary for society's most broken - addicts, conmen, even murderers - pulled from the streets with the fragile hope of recovery. While others recoiled, Jonathan found friendship and family in those who joined his parents' centre, standing loyally beside them as they battled their demons.
San Blas may have been Europe's heroin capital, but it was not the drugs, the alcohol or the violence that took so many lives. AIDS hit Spain a few years after it exploded in New York and, like an invisible plague, it claimed countless lives - including those who Jonathan came to love as brothers and sisters in the family rehabilitation centre. Unable to do anything but helplessly stand by, Jonathan, from a young age, had to confront the raw reality of grief and the fleeting nature of life itself.
A powerful and deeply moving exploration of love, loss and faith, Shooting Up is also an enduring love letter to old friends and family, and a welcome reminder on how hope can unexpectedly arise in even the darkest places.
Critics Review
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In stark, often heart-rending prose, Jonathan tells the story of growing up with his three brothers and missionary parents in San Blas a drug overrun neighbourhood of Madrid. It is a tale of tragedy and triumph in the midst of loss and death. Ultimately, Shooting Up is a powerful testament to the redemptive power of faith, friendship, and love. I couldn't recommend it more highly; I cried, I laughed, I was changed
Tom Webber, author of Flying Over 96th Street: Memoir of an East Harlem White Boy
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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"
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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[An] extraordinary coming-of-age story
Spectator
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Details
- Author
- Jonathan Tepper
- Narrator
- Jonathan Tepper
- Duration
- 6 hours 58 minutes
- Release Date
- 19 February 2026
- ISBN
- 9781405567336
- Format
- Audiobook
- Publisher
- Little, Brown Book Group
- Genre
- Memoirs
Synopsis
Raised in 1980s Madrid in the streets of San Blas, which bore the devastating scars of heroin addiction and crime, Jonathan Tepper's childhood was anything but ordinary.Born into a family of American missionaries driven by unwavering faith, Jonathan's home became a sanctuary for society's most broken - addicts, conmen, even murderers - pulled from the streets with the fragile hope of recovery. While others recoiled, Jonathan found friendship and family in those who joined his parents' centre, standing loyally beside them as they battled their demons.San Blas may have been Europe's heroin capital, but it was not the drugs, the alcohol or the violence that took so many lives. AIDS hit Spain a few years after it exploded in New York and, like an invisible plague, it claimed countless lives - including those who Jonathan came to love as brothers and sisters in the family rehabilitation centre. Unable to do anything but helplessly stand by, Jonathan, from a young age, had to confront the raw reality of grief and the fleeting nature of life itself.A powerful and deeply moving exploration of love, loss and faith, Shooting Up is also an enduring love letter to old friends and family, and a welcome reminder on how hope can unexpectedly arise in even the darkest places.
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