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High LifeBy Matthew Stokoe Mystery / Fiction | Paperback *This edition is now out of print. Please check out a revised version of the book (with a new introduction by Dennis Cooper) here.* The debut title in Akashic's Little House on the Bowery series. "High Life shows an author of awesome ability . . . one of the best [books] to come out in 2002." --Barcelona Review "[Stokoe's] style is so fluidly readable that it's difficult to put the book down." --Splendid Magazine "Stokoe proves himself a worthy heir to the great tradition of California noir. Brutal and unflinching in its depiction of violence and sex, his book is like an unholy hybrid of Raymond Chandler's best work and Bret Easton Ellis's American Psycho." --Henry Flesh, Lambda Literary Award-winning author of Massage "Stokoe's in-your-face prose and raw, unnerving scenes give way to a skillfully plotted tale that will keep readers glued to the page . . . Stokoe's protagonist is as gritty and brutal as they come, which will frighten away the chaste crowd, but the author's target Bret Easton Ellis audience could turn this one into a word-of-mouth success. --Publishers Weekly "An elaborately drawn, surgically accurate Hollywood dystopia . . ." --Ellen Miller, author of the international bestseller Like Being Killed "All of the classic ingredients of Californian noir are here, but Stokoe takes things further than most . . . The plot is skilfully worked, the elements of crime writing are not jettisoned in the mounting horrors that he describes. There's also a certain grim humour on display, at times it is impossible not to laugh, even when Stokoe is making us wallow in filth. One can't help but feel that he's enjoying himself immensely . . . This is a compelling and gripping novel." --Black Star Reviews (UK) "Summer Sizzlers: Page-turning books that will keep you glued to your beach blankets . . . Soaked in such graphic detail that the pages smell, Matthew Stokoe's High Life is the sickest revision of the California crime novel, ever." --Paper Magazine "If you've got a stomach for a bit of the old ultra-violence, and all manner of unnatural sexual custom, you will be as fascinated by High Life's depiction of Angeleno lowlife and highlife as I was." --ink19 "Matthew Stokoe's brutal novel High Life explores the lengths one man will go to for a shot at stardom, and to say those lengths are extreme would be an understatement. From Raymond Chandler to Nathanael West to James Ellroy, the "dark underbelly of L.A." novel has always been an exercise in one-upmanship, to see who can create the starkest contrast between the surface of Hollywood glitz and the sheer depravity that lies beneath it. Stokoe's protagonist is Jack, a fully confirmed acolyte of the Hollywood Dream whose holy writ are the print and video tabloids . . . [T]he novel never strays far from its central purpose, to force the reader to consider the price he or she might pay for the ultimate prize. As we watch the various threads of Jack's life come together in a truly devastating series of events that raise the stakes ever higher, the question of how much hell any of us would endure for the promise of heaven is as poignant here as it is in anything by Dante." --PopMatters Hollywood, the City of Dreams. Jack had one ambition: to become famous, a star, in exactly what way he didn't care. He just wanted to be like the people whose lives he followed in the tabloids: Brad Pitt, Johnny Depp, Tom and Nicole. Instead he entered a world much seedier than anything he could have imagined, a world of drugs and crime, whores, snuff shows, incest, deceit--and despair. His wife, Karen, a hooker, is found dead -- murdered and disemboweled. During his search for her killer he meets Bella, a woman of immense wealth, and sees a chance to make his dreams of money and fame come true. As it turns out, though, his nightmare is only beginning. Matthew Stokoe is the author of the visceral classic, Cows. High Life is his second novel. |
