Permanent Midnight: A Memoir

“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.