Permanent Midnight Jerry Stahl

is byline appeared everywhere, from 
L.A. Style
 to the 
Village Voice
, from 
Esquire
 to 
Hustler
. He penned scripts for twisted cult classics like 
Cafe Flesh
 and 
Dr. Caligari
. He banged out shows for TV mega-hits like 
Moonlighting
, 
Twin Peaks
, and 
thirtysomething
. But even when Jerry Stahl was making five grand a week, he was shooting six. Careening from his luxury home to L.A.'s more hellacious neighborhoods, he financed a heroin habit that brought on the soothing hiss of oblivion, while it stole his health and smashed his career. Until in a private apocalypse straight out of 
Day of the Locust
, Jerry Stahl kicked smack and emerged clean.

A searing, strung-out confessional in the lineage of Lenny Bruce, William S. Burroughs, and Hubert Selby Jr., PERMANENT MIDNIGHT chronicles one man's slide into the opiated abyss and his claw-marked ascent back into the light--heralding the return of the Urban Hipster to contemporary literature, infused with savage humor and relentless intensity.