Me and the Devil

October 1, 2012
In this novel of sadomasochistic vampirism, an aging writer drinks blood to restore youth, vitality, and the urge to write. Nick is a misanthrope who sees people as “a source of tedium and acid reflux.” With young women, he enjoys rough sex, the kind that draws blood (his pickups like to be raped, bitten, and whipped). But there are no black capes or bats; instead, drinking blood is the transgressive act of an intellectual, an incarnadine feast over dull conversations about, among other things, the efficiency of the Greek language or the precision of Latin when it comes to oral sex. Nick also converses with the devil, about haberdashery and The Music Man. Occasionally, Tosches (In the Hand of Dante) uses the narrator as a mouthpiece to decry the “monopoly of bookstores” (a subject he’s covered before), “island-nigger nannies... pushing white yuppie brats in three-grand prams and strollers,” and other topics. The book is composed of turgid prose, pornographic sex, misogyny, and slurs, images, and scenes impartial in their offensiveness, such as a woman falling in love with her rapist. A novel for the most devoted fans of “transgressive” fiction and the most outré vampire erotica.

October 15, 2012
The longtime chronicler of pop music's shadowy corners explores New York's dark side in this rambling, at times grotesque tale. The narrator of Tosches' fourth novel (In the Hand of Dante, 2002, etc.), like the author himself, is an aging author named Nick with an abiding love for art and music. (Rock icons Keith Richards and Peter Wolf have brief cameos.) But likening the novel's Nick too much to the author Tosches would be pushing it, or at least the reader would hope: Our hero is a sexual reprobate prone to racist utterances who's consumed with an unseemly fetish for women's blood, and in his obsessive fog he may have wound up committing murder. The two main relationships in his life are at least consensual: He picks up one woman in a bar during an attempt to quit drinking, while another woman is a young S&M enthusiast who haunts the same AA meetings he does. The transgressive sex scenes owe a good deal to Dennis Cooper, who's long reveled in this material, but while Tosches intentionally pushes the boundaries of good taste--provocateurs like Hubert Selby Jr. and Charles Bukowski are other obvious touchstones--it's the looseness of the narrative that's more exhausting. Nick is prone to longueurs on getting sober (he spends a good deal of time locating a drug that allegedly cures alcoholism), sex, Greek and Latin etymology, Manhattan gentrification and the fate of the publishing industry. The plot between the riffs is sketchy at best, though Tosches' streetwise-professor tone keeps the book from derailing entirely, and Nick's confrontation with the devil of the title is an entertainingly blackhearted look at one man's narcissism. Grim, oversexed, arrogant, intense--Tosches' protagonist has dumped out his id for all to see, narrative integrity be damned.

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July 1, 2012

This edgy-sounding novel by Nick Tosches stars a guy named Nick Tosches who's in a down-and-out state when, in a shadowy bar, he meets an alluring woman who opens some very interesting doors. Lust for sex and human blood seems to be a part of what he discovers. Tosches is the author of the national best-selling In the Hand of Dante and, says his biography, is "uniquely acquainted with the half-lit world in which his novel is set." So watch out.

Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 1, 2012
Once again, Tosches delivers a dark narrative that cleverly blurs the lines between reality and fantasy. As before, he fashions the protagonist after himself, an aging and cynical writer living in New York City, who believes he has recaptured his vigor after tasting a young woman's blood during a night of passion. Having sampled it once, he seeks it again in the arms of other lovers. His fetishistic pursuit seems to be producing real results, and a great knowledge of ancient mythology fuels Nick's belief that he might actually be becoming a god. The quest for everlasting youth is not without madness, though, and it is to the latter end that Nick ultimately appears headed. Tosches takes readers on an unpredictable journey through disturbing and erotic desires, but within the sordid facade is an insightful examination of psychosis and addiction. Tosches fans will appreciate his voice as he homes in on social issues like e-readers, the organic movement, and real estate, but this excellent work of self-reflection will appeal to newcomers as well.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)