Jerry Stahl Unearths 50 Years Of Lost Writing With ‘Gonzo Neurotic: The Best (And Not So Best) Of Jerry Stahl’ Out September 22, Published By ZE Books
New Collection Resurrects Decades Of Stahl’s Outsider Reporting, Profiles & Cultural Dispatches - From Marlon Brando And David Bowie To Miss America, Alf & The Strangest Corners Of American Life
In Conversation With Marc Maron In LA & Eric Bogosian In NYC For Just-Announced Events This September
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Dubbed “a better-than-Burroughs virtuoso” by the New Yorker, Jerry Stahl, one of America’s great cult literary voices, returns this fall with Gonzo Neurotic: The Best (And Not So Best) Of Jerry Stahl. Out September 22 via ZE Books, the remarkable collection resurrects more than fifty years of his long-lost writing - much of it buried in alt-weeklies and pre-internet magazines that have all but disappeared.
Long before Stahl’s best-selling memoir Permanent Midnight (later adapted into the iconic film starring Ben Stiller) introduced him to a wider audience, he made a career out of going where polite society would rather not look - reporting from America's cultural underbelly, covering everything from televangelists, recovery culture and Hollywood oddballs. Gonzo Neurotic brings those pieces back into print for the first time, paired with Stahl’s new commentary that revisits the writing and era that shaped them.
Spanning the 1970s to the 2020s, Stahl takes readers from the "wet heart of Pageantland" at Miss America to the set of ALF (Alien Life Form), while also descending into his struggles with addiction, fatherhood, Jewish identity and survival. Along the way are unforgettable encounters with figures like Marlon Brando, David Bowie, Mickey Rourke, Samuel L. Jackson, and Benicio del Toro. The result is a sharp, wickedly funny, and ultimately cathartic reckoning with a half-century of cultural and personal upheaval.
Pre-order Gonzo Neurotic here: https://www.zebooks.com/books/gonzo-neurotic
Listen to Stahl’s discuss Gonzo Neurotic on How Long Gone here: https://howlonggone.com/985-jerry-stahl
To celebrate publication, Stahl will appear for two special conversations this fall, joining Marc Maron at Stories Books & Cafe in LA on September 24 and Eric Bogosian at Housing Works Bookstore in NYC on September 30. Stahl will also moderate an event with David Duchovny at Book Soup in LA on September 18.
Award-winning novelist, journalist, and screenwriter, Stahl is the author of twelve books, including the best-selling novel I, Fatty and, most recently, Nein, Nein, Nein!, named one of Kirkus’ 100 Best Books of 2022. His journalism has appeared in The New York Times, Esquire, VICE, while his screenwriting credits include Emmy-nominated Escape at Dannemora, Maron, the most-watched episode of CSI: Las Vegas, Twin Peaks, Bad Boys II, and Hemingway & Gellhorn. His acting credits include Severance and David Lynch’sInland Empire. A former heroin addict, over the years Stahl has worked a number of jobs, including dishwasher and bartender, in London, messenger in New York City, and, at 38 (not to brag), proud employee of a Phoenix, Arizona McDonalds.
Praise for Jerry Stahl:
“Jerry Stahl should either get the Pulitzer prize or be shot down in the street like a dog.”
- Anthony Bourdain
“No one can make me laugh while kicking me down the dark tunnel of self like Jerry Stahl.”
- Marc Maron
“Gonzo Neurotic is hilarious, brutal and outrageously self-revelatory. Stahl writes with a kind of wildass genius that renders the mundane deranged and the deranged relatable. He is a complete original, and one of my favorite living writers.”
- Lydia Lunch
“An acid wit as deadly serious as it is hilarious.”
- Eric Bogosian
“A better-than-Burroughs virtuoso.”
- The New Yorker
“Stahl is celebrated for his masochistic honesty that is never less than brutal and almost always on the other side of hope.”
- The Brooklyn Rail
About ZE Books:
Founded in 2019 by Michael Zilkha, ZE Books publishes extraordinary literary and visual works by groundbreaking writers, journalists, artists, musicians, and thinkers from around the world. Titles span art, experimental writing, poetry, fiction, memoir, with an increasing focus on music.
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Anna DeNelsky - adenelsky@shorefire.com
Max Lefkowitz - mlefkowitz@shorefire.com
Matt Hanks - mhanks@shorefire.com