Bailed out of jail and holed up in a low-rent motel, amnesiac Eric Ashworth has only the memory of a woman's name: Desiree. With steadily increasing doses of a strange new hallucinogen, Ashworth finds that the drug allows him to reassemble his past in broken fragments. But as he begins to lose touch with the present, his distinction between truth and fantasy begins to crumble, creating a world where divisions between love and loss, violence and tenderness, and fact and fiction are less discernible than they ought to be.

Dermaphoria

Literature & Fiction

Craig Clevenger

Contemporary

FOURTH ESTATE (HCOL)

Clandestine chemistry and the L.A. underworld provide the atmosphere for this tale of painful lost memories and the heartbreak of finding them.Eric Ashworth awakens in jail, unable to remember how he got there or why. His only memory is a woman's name: Desiree. Bailed out and holed up in a low-rent motel, Eric finds the solution to his amnesia in a strange new hallucinogen. By synthesizing the sense of touch, the drug produces a disjointed series of sensations that slowly allow Eric to remember his former life as a clandestine chemist. With steadily increasing doses, Eric reassembles his past at the expense of his grip on the present, and his distinction between truth and fantasy crumbles as his paranoia grows in tandem with his tolerance. In Dermaphoria Clevenger creates a visceral world where divisions between love and loss, violence and tenderness, and fact and fiction prove to be less discernible than they ought to be.

United States

Blackstone Audiobooks

The Contortionist's Handbook

<p>A stunningly intense debut novel about a talented young forger who continually reinvents himself to escape the authorities. 'I swear to God this is the best book I have read in easily five years. Easily. Maybe ten years.' Chuck Palahniuk, author of Fight Club Following a near fatal overdose of painkillers, Daniel Fletcher is resuscitated in a Los Angeles emergency room and detained for psychiatric evaluation. Through a series of questions and tests, the psychiatrist must ascertain whether the patient intended to kill himself, or whether he can walk free. What the psychiatrist doesn't know is that 'Daniel Fletcher' is actually John - Johnny - Dolan Vincent, a brilliant young forger who continually changes his identity to save himself from a lifetime of incarceration. Johnny has done such assessments before - many, many times. As he creates an elaborate bluff for the evaluator, Johnny reveals the true story of his traumatic past - a broken family, descent into the sinister world of forgers and criminals, and his one chance of salvation in the beautiful and elusive Molly. But time is running out; as his underworld clients lose patience and the psychiatrist's net closes around him, Johnny has to negotiate the escape act of his life. Evoking the boulevards and strip bars of 1980s LA with cinematic intensity, The Contortionist's Handbook is a darkly hypnotic and stunningly original debut.</p>

MacAdam/Cage Publishing

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Craig Clevenger. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Craig Clevenger

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Craig Clevenger. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Dermaphoria

Dermaphoria

The Contortionist's Handbook