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High Tolerance: A Novel of Sex, Race, Celebrity, Murder . . .and Marijuana
“The wry and knowing Mike Sager has written a saucy and kinetic L.A. novel. Celebrity gets fully toasted in this engaging romp about show business and the clash of cultures high and low, where the talk is tough before the shooting starts. The spotlight, it seems, can sometimes be a very dark place.”
–Ron Carlson, author, Return to Oakpine, co-director, MFA Program in Fiction Writing, University of California, Irvine.
In this artful page-turner, a beloved superstarlet, a controversial billionaire Hip Hop mogul, and a television writer/producer idled by a demoralizing strike are linked together improbably by murder, domestic heartbreak, a sex video . . . and their inclusion on a secret subscription list for an exclusive designer strain of medical marijuana. Over a span of three seemingly ordinary days and nights in Los Angeles, the world wobbles on its digital axis, and futures are forever changed.
Hollywood, January 2008. The Writers Guild of America is on strike. An increasingly peevish viewing audience is relegated to a starvation diet of reruns and old movies. What happens when a series of shocking, deadly, and prurient events boils over into a perfect storm of serendipitous, round-the-clock programming? And what becomes of the major players, whose lives are inalterably masticated by the public’s right to know?
High Tolerance is the second novel by the award-winning Rolling Stone and Esquire journalist Mike Sager, whose work has inspired a number of films, including the classic Boogie Nights. He summons his considerable descriptive and narrative powers—and three decades behind the scenes covering celebrities, gangs, drugs, and crime—to weave together a raw and insightful tale of complicated lives in the shifting racial landscape of turn-of-the-century Los Angeles, the dream factory from which the American Zeitgeist is exported around the globe.
–Ron Carlson, author, Return to Oakpine, co-director, MFA Program in Fiction Writing, University of California, Irvine.
In this artful page-turner, a beloved superstarlet, a controversial billionaire Hip Hop mogul, and a television writer/producer idled by a demoralizing strike are linked together improbably by murder, domestic heartbreak, a sex video . . . and their inclusion on a secret subscription list for an exclusive designer strain of medical marijuana. Over a span of three seemingly ordinary days and nights in Los Angeles, the world wobbles on its digital axis, and futures are forever changed.
Hollywood, January 2008. The Writers Guild of America is on strike. An increasingly peevish viewing audience is relegated to a starvation diet of reruns and old movies. What happens when a series of shocking, deadly, and prurient events boils over into a perfect storm of serendipitous, round-the-clock programming? And what becomes of the major players, whose lives are inalterably masticated by the public’s right to know?
High Tolerance is the second novel by the award-winning Rolling Stone and Esquire journalist Mike Sager, whose work has inspired a number of films, including the classic Boogie Nights. He summons his considerable descriptive and narrative powers—and three decades behind the scenes covering celebrities, gangs, drugs, and crime—to weave together a raw and insightful tale of complicated lives in the shifting racial landscape of turn-of-the-century Los Angeles, the dream factory from which the American Zeitgeist is exported around the globe.
280 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2013
2 people are currently reading
13 people want to read
About the author
Mike Sager
34 books37 followersMike Sager is a best-selling author and award-winning reporter. A former Washington Post staff writer under Watergate investigator Bob Woodward, he worked closely, during his years as a contributing editor to Rolling Stone, with gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson. Sager is the author of four collections of non-fiction, two novels, and one biography. He has served for more than fifteen years as a writer at large for Esquire. In 2010 he won the American Society of Magazine Editors’ National Magazine Award for profile writing for his article “The Man Who Never Was.” Many of his stories have been optioned for film. For more information, please see www.mikesager.com.
Sager is also the founding editor and publisher of The Sager Group. for more information, please see www.TheSagerGroup.Net.
Sager is also the founding editor and publisher of The Sager Group. for more information, please see www.TheSagerGroup.Net.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
January 8, 2014
High Tolerance to finish
I’m glad this was free. At the 140 page mark, the story became lost and bogged down with frivolous chapters and irrelevant information. The best part was the cover. I actually thought the book was suppose to be about a Rap Lord murdering potential clients and then the cops figuring out what happened. Oh, throw in the hottest white chick in Hollywood and you have the makings of a good story. At least you should.
The biggest shortfall is the endless and I mean endless descriptions of every dialog. I’ve never read anything like this and hopefully won’t again. Does it really take three paragraphs to describe how someone said, “Hi,” or any other discussions? I don’t think so.
I believe more thought was put into the chapter titles than the actual chapter content.
Very disappointed.
I’m glad this was free. At the 140 page mark, the story became lost and bogged down with frivolous chapters and irrelevant information. The best part was the cover. I actually thought the book was suppose to be about a Rap Lord murdering potential clients and then the cops figuring out what happened. Oh, throw in the hottest white chick in Hollywood and you have the makings of a good story. At least you should.
The biggest shortfall is the endless and I mean endless descriptions of every dialog. I’ve never read anything like this and hopefully won’t again. Does it really take three paragraphs to describe how someone said, “Hi,” or any other discussions? I don’t think so.
I believe more thought was put into the chapter titles than the actual chapter content.
Very disappointed.
Displaying 1 of 1 review