We’ve long been interested in the connection between drugs (legal and otherwise) and art, which explains why we were so excited to hear that one of our favorite publishers, Akashic, is launching a Drug Chronicles series. Modeled on the press’s fantastic and successful location-based Noir books and beginning with a new printing of 2005′s The Cocaine Chronicles, each volume will compile original stories about individual substances from an impressive roster of contributors. The first new collection, The Speed Chronicles, comes out December 1st. We emailed with Akashic publisher Johnny Temple — who music fans will recognize as the bassist of Girls Against Boys — about how the series came about, what we can expect from it, and his own favorite drug-influenced work of literature.
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The ’90s publishing paradigm favored confessional memoirs, legal thrillers, and books about genetically recreated dinosaurs taking over amusement parks. We couldn’t get enough of the stuff. But though we still enjoy the confessional memoir, we’re less inclined to go for a Crichton rip-off today, for whatever the reason. Probably because we’re too engrossed in reading vampire fiction for chaste teens or books about four-year-olds seeing the light. What were the authors you loved in the ’90s that you think fell of the map a bit, readers? Let us know in the comments section below.
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From his gut-wrenching addiction memoir Permanent Midnight to his latest novel, Pain Killers, Jerry Stahl’s biting, fast-paced prose has always resisted compromise. He’s explored almost every genre, from TV scripts, memoirs, and short stories to historical and crime fiction, but it’s his refusal to hold anything back that makes him one of contemporary literature’s most dynamic authors (whether he likes it or not). Flavorwire caught up with the tenacious wordsmith via email for a mini tell-all, whereupon we get the dirt on Café Flesh, PERV: A Love Story, and the notorious Nazi physician, Josef Mengele — one of Stahl’s main characters in Pain Killers.
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