“A better-than Burroughs virtuoso... Stahl has earned the blurbs he’s picked up along the way from James Ellroy, Hubert Selby Jr., and Jim Carroll, and has the right to be counted in their skanky, stylish company.” —Thomas Mallon, The New Yorker

"Stahl’sbrilliantly demented riffs deserved to be read—or screamed—aloud." —Entertainment Weekly

A teenageboy’s mile-high tryst with a middle-aged widow... A love affair between a former junkie and an ex-circus midget... A salacious encounter with the vice president ... The meth-frayed chronicles of a born-again call girl...

In stories of startling breadth and immediacy, Jerry Stahl plumbs the depths of romantic obsession, sex-crazed adolescence, family dysfunction, and other universals of American life. By turns vulgar and tender, wrenching and hysterical, Stahl mines his unique mix of savage humor, unflinching humanity, and unlikely eroticism from the wildest of encounters. Written over the past thirty years, this collection demonstrates why Jerry Stahl’s voice remains one of the most vital and uncompromising in contemporary literature.

MIDNIGHT MAVERICKS: REPORTS FROM THE UNDERGROUND, W/CD
by Gene Gregorits

A trip through the hearts and minds of today's most uncompromising artists. This heavily illustrated book features four dozen interviews by gonzo journalist Gene Gregorits, who talks to underground artists whose work is defined by its purity and uncompromising attitudes. Includes interviews with filmmakers John Waters, Abel Ferrara, Stuart Gordon, Nick Zedd, and more; musicians The Kills, Simon Stokes, Steve Wynn, Rennie Sparks, Sturgis Nikides, and more; and noted underground figures Mary Woronov, Lydia Lunch, Nick Tosches, Jim Goad, Ron Athey, Joe R. Lansdale, Jack Ketchum, Mike Diana, Lech Kowalski, Dan Fante, Carla Bozulich, Patton Oswalt, and more. Includes 70-minute CD with interview excerpts and rare tracks from The Kills, Lydia Lunch, The Flesh Eaters, Sturgis Nikides, Steve Wynn, Jim Goad, Simon Stokes and more.