“An extraordinary accomplishment. . . . A remarkable book that will be of great value to people who feel isolated, alienated and overwhelmed by the circumstances of their lives.”—Hubert Selby, Jr., author of Last Exit to Brooklyn “[Stahl] is a better-than-Burroughs virtuoso.”—Thomas Mallon, The New Yorker “Original, appalling, indelible picture of a man trying to swim and drown at the same time. Stahl has nerve, heart, a language of his own and a ghastly, riotous humor.”—Tobias Wolff, author of This Boy's Life “ Permanent Midnight is one of the most harrowing and toughest accounts ever written in this century about what it means to be a junkie in America, making Burroughs look dated and Kerouac appear as the nose-thumbing adolescent he was.”— Booklist A searing confessional infused with the darkest humor, Permanent Midnight chronicles the opiated abyss of a Hollywood screenwriter and his formidable climb into sobriety. Made into a major motion picture starring Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson, Permanent Midnight is revered by critics and an ever-growing cult of devoted readers as one of the most compelling contemporary memoirs. Jerry Stahl was born in Pittsburgh. He is author of the novels Perv: A Love Story , Plainclothes Naked and I, Fatty , the paperback edition of which will appear in 2005. He currently lives in Los Angeles.

From the bestselling author of the memoir Permanent Midnight and the novel I, Fatty comes a long-awaited collection of short stories. Jerry’s Stahl’s perverse, yet often touching tales, many of which first appeared in publications ranging from Playboy to the Pushcart Prize to Best Erotic Fiction, plumb the depths of eccentric romance, sex-starved adolescence, mid-life crisis, and family dysfunction. From a teenager’s tryst with a recently widowed middle-aged woman on an airplane, to a dissatisfied dentist’s attempt to find freedom on the road with a much younger woman, all the way to an intensely erotic love affair between an ex-junkie and an ex-circus midget with a sexual obsession with vegetables, this collection never fails to arouse and surprise. With a disarmingly immediate prose style, Stahl finds great eroticism, humor, and humanity in the wildest of encounters.

From legendary cult writer Jerry Stahl comes Plainclothes Naked, a breakout novel that jacks up crime fiction to new heights of twisted, sexy, mind-blowing brilliance. With searing wit and devastating detail, Stahl -- whose work, Jim Carroll has written, "fills the gap in American literature left void since the death of the late, great Terry Southern " -- takes us deep into the minds of addicts and detectives, fetishists and killers. It's a vision of American misfits in a world of violent crime, official corruption, drug-addled scheming, and -- perhaps strangest of all -- genuine, up-from-the-toes true love. In a wildly careening plot that can only be described as crack noir, two pipe-heads accidentally steal a photo of George W. Bush's presidential package with a happy face tattooed on it and decide to blackmail the Republican Party. Before the crack-crazed thieves can follow through, however, a gorgeous, whip-smart young nurse absconds with the goods. But Nurse Tina's got her own problems -- she's just offed her online "money swami" husband with a bowl of Drano-laced Lucky Charms. When Manny Rubert, a scarred ex-junkie turned codeine-popping detective, is called in to investigate the "foamer" hubby's untimely demise, love hits him like a wrench to the head. Soon Manny and Tina are making plans of their own for the presidential pic -- and for their future together. But the meddling police chiefs and motel room sex-change surgeons of the world just won't leave them alone. And then there are those killer crackheads, still out there and closing in... At once a scathing tale of contemporary insanity and a no-holds-barred, tour de force thriller, Plainclothes Naked forges violence and comedy into a criminal love story as shocking as it is transcendent.

Lloyd has a particular set of skills. He writes the small print for prescription drugs, marital aids, and incontinence products. The clients present him with a list of possible side effects. His job is "to "ecite and minimize", sometimes by just saying them really fast and other times by finding the language that can render them acceptable. The results are ingenious. The methods diabolical. Lloyd has a habit too. He cops smack during coffee breaks at his new job writing copy for Christian Swingles, an online dating service for the faithful. He finds a precarious balance between hackwork and heroin until he encounters Nora, a mysterious and troubled young woman, a Sylvia Plath with tattoos and implants, who asks for his help. Lloyd falls swiftly in love, but Nora bestows her affections at a cost. Before Lloyd clears his head from the fog of romance, he finds himself complicit in Nora's grand scheme to horrify the world and exact revenge on those who poison the populace in order to sell them the cure.