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Gonzo Neurotic: The Best (and Not So Best) of Jerry Stahl
“Jerry Stahl should either get the Pulitzer prize or be shot down in the street like a dog.” ―Anthony Bourdain
“[A] career-spanning collection . . . Stahl is funny, self-aware and very much in on his own ‘professional ex-junkie’ act . . . But he’s a more sober observer than he lets on . . . Stahl is his own vivid comic invention. Life whooshes past him like arrows, and some of those arrows stick in his guts.”
―Dwight Garner, The New York Times Book Review
Fifty years of sex, drugs, show business, and bad behavior from the inimitable laureate of American excess, Jerry Stahl.
Long before descending into the underworld of addiction in Permanent Midnight―the memoir, and later film, that made him famous―Jerry Stahl had built a singular career reporting from America’s psychic gutters and cultural sideshows. Ricocheting from porn sets, televangelists, undertaker conventions, recovery culture, and all manner of Hollywood grotesquerie, he fearlessly explored the darker territory of heroin, fatherhood, Jewish identity, and survival. Stahl’s work has always been electric―but much of it had lain buried in the lost world of Alt-weeklies and pre-internet magazines, decimated by the digital corporate ogre.
Now, in Gonzo Neurotic, Stahl brings together the New Journalism that shaped his singular voice, interlaced with his own wild-ass commentary on his youthful lunacy and catastrophic life choices. Spanning the 1970s to the 2020s, the book takes readers from the ‘wet heart of Pageantland’ at the Miss America contest, to the twisted realms of post-nuclear cult erotica, to the TV Show ALF, and to the extremes of midnight moviedom. Simultaneously, Stahl charts his own mental and physical struggles alongside profiles of such figures as Marlon Brando, Samuel Jackson, Benicio del Toro, and an enterprising brothel owner who opted for the professional name “Hillary.” The result is a sharp, wickedly funny, and ultimately cathartic reckoning with a half-century of cultural and personal upheaval.
“[A] career-spanning collection . . . Stahl is funny, self-aware and very much in on his own ‘professional ex-junkie’ act . . . But he’s a more sober observer than he lets on . . . Stahl is his own vivid comic invention. Life whooshes past him like arrows, and some of those arrows stick in his guts.”
―Dwight Garner, The New York Times Book Review
Fifty years of sex, drugs, show business, and bad behavior from the inimitable laureate of American excess, Jerry Stahl.
Long before descending into the underworld of addiction in Permanent Midnight―the memoir, and later film, that made him famous―Jerry Stahl had built a singular career reporting from America’s psychic gutters and cultural sideshows. Ricocheting from porn sets, televangelists, undertaker conventions, recovery culture, and all manner of Hollywood grotesquerie, he fearlessly explored the darker territory of heroin, fatherhood, Jewish identity, and survival. Stahl’s work has always been electric―but much of it had lain buried in the lost world of Alt-weeklies and pre-internet magazines, decimated by the digital corporate ogre.
Now, in Gonzo Neurotic, Stahl brings together the New Journalism that shaped his singular voice, interlaced with his own wild-ass commentary on his youthful lunacy and catastrophic life choices. Spanning the 1970s to the 2020s, the book takes readers from the ‘wet heart of Pageantland’ at the Miss America contest, to the twisted realms of post-nuclear cult erotica, to the TV Show ALF, and to the extremes of midnight moviedom. Simultaneously, Stahl charts his own mental and physical struggles alongside profiles of such figures as Marlon Brando, Samuel Jackson, Benicio del Toro, and an enterprising brothel owner who opted for the professional name “Hillary.” The result is a sharp, wickedly funny, and ultimately cathartic reckoning with a half-century of cultural and personal upheaval.
456 pages, Paperback
Published September 29, 2026
About the author
Jerry Stahl
45 books236 followersJerry Stahl (born September 28, 1953) is an American novelist and screenwriter, He is best known for the darkly comedic tale of addiction, Permanent Midnight, which was revered by critics and an ever-growing cult of devoted readers, as one of the most compelling, contemporary memoirs. A film adaptation soon followed with Ben Stiller in the lead role, which is widely considered to be Mr. Stiller’s breakthrough performance. Since their initial paring, the two have become lifelong friends and collaborators.
One of Stahl’s mentors and greatest influences, the late American Novelist, Hubert Selby, Jr. had this to say about Permanent Midnight, “Absolutely compelling... Permanent Midnight is 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.”
Jerry Stahl has worked extensively in film and television.
One of Stahl’s mentors and greatest influences, the late American Novelist, Hubert Selby, Jr. had this to say about Permanent Midnight, “Absolutely compelling... Permanent Midnight is 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.”
Jerry Stahl has worked extensively in film and television.
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Review of advance copy received from Publisher
Like many, I first encountered (and fell under the spell of) Jerry Stahl when I read "Permanent Midnight" in the '90s. Now, in reading "Gonzo Neurotic," I'm realizing how much of what and how he wrote and what he chose to write about (namely, himself) made up the source code for other writers who followed him. These weren't writers who devoted themselves to writing full stop but writers who lived full lives and then wrote about those lives. He was a TV writer/junkie whose live provided all the source material Stahl would ever need. Anthony Bourdain, eventually a contemporary of Stahl's, seems influenced by "Permanent Midnight." Was there something in Stahl's prose and subject that made a dual track life in public service and as a writer seem possible to me? Looking back, it seems likely. "Gonzo Neurotic" is less a book than a life lived and then chronicled, and the great joy of this book are his reflective introductions to each piece. If you liked "Kitchen Confidential" but wished there'd been more heroin, you'll love "Gonzo Neurotic."
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review