Sick City

Starred review from June 28, 2010
O'Neill (Down and Out on Murder Mile) delivers a Hollywood thriller that's equal parts acerbic social commentary à la Burroughs's Naked Lunch and extraordinary crime fiction misadventure featuring a druggie misfit named Jeffrey. After the sudden death of Jeffrey's "sugar daddy" lover, a retired L.A. cop, he's left with only a suitcase full of drugs, cash, and a "truly historic piece of celluloid," Sharon Tate's "last performance" in a private sex tape that includes an orgy with a laundry list of Hollywood stars. Jeffrey and a speed freak he met in rehab with connections to the movie industry come up with a half-baked plan to sell the homemade film, which could be worth millions, and gain some kind of salvation with the money. But with shadowy pasts, raging addictions, and a murderous psycho hot on their tails, the unlikely duo finds staying sober—and alive—increasingly difficult. Fans of Chuck Palahniuk and Warren Ellis will cherish this twisted tale and its repellent and disturbing imagery.

June 15, 2010

Another slice of drug-inspired ultraviolence from O'Neill (Down and Out on Murder Mile, 2008, etc.).

The author once again plumbs the depths of his dope days with this inspired comedy of errors. A bigger cast this time lends his acid humor more room to grow, as he brings a motley crew of addicts, charlatans, TV whores and desperate johns together in a send-up of Hollywood capers. Our protagonists are Jeffrey and Randal, two deeply flaky addicts from different sides of the scene. As the novel opens, beta-male Jeffrey has found that his sugar daddy, Bill—ex-cop, kink connoisseur and witness to the worst of the '60s—is as dead as disco. With the paranoia that only primo stuff can inspire, Jeffrey empties out the old man's safe and makes a run for a celebrity rehab center. The center, Clean and Serene, is run by the most scathingly funny character in the book, Dr. Mike, a TV-addiction guru who trades drugs to transvestite prostitutes to feed his own little jones. And no one writes about detox like O'Neill, who knows this territory firsthand: "As the dope worked its way out of his system, he sweated and twisted on the thin mattress and his dreams were vivid, full-color nightmares of pure, white Chinese heroin, Bill's shriveled-up old corpse dancing as if suspended on marionette strings, and rocks of crack the size and shape of boulders." The book picks up momentum when Jeffrey meets Randal, the son of a legendary Hollywood family who smoked his way past his own father's funeral. Together, these two disgraced junkies start planning their retirement score—the unloading of a long-forgotten sex tape featuring Sharon Tate, Steve McQueen, Mama Cass and others in full legendary bacchanalia. Chaos ensues, infused with enough humor black to make Bill Burroughs choke on his apple.

A post-punk crack at Hollywood's legacy that's funnier than its predecessor, and just as cringe-inducing.

(COPYRIGHT (2010) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

May 1, 2010
Former heroin addict ONeill works a similar vein to his previous titles, which include Down and Out on the Murder Mile (2008). Here, aging, drug-snarfing rent boy Jeffrey inherits one hell of a hand-me-down from his suddenly dead ex-cop lover: a 16mm film featuring Sharon Tate at the center of an all-star Hollywood gangbang. Checking himself into rehab, Jeffrey meets Randal, a meth-using son of movie-industry royalty, and the two of them plot to fence the film. For them, this is honest work, but their utter lack of willpower means they keep shooting themselves in the foot (and arm, leg, and neck). Although the maguffin provides forward momentum, this ensemble of grotesques stumbles through skid-row L.A. like a Robert Altman film scripted by Charles Bukowski and William S. Burroughs. The plot could use tighteningone subplot goes nowhere, while another is essentialbut the characters are unforgettable; they live and breathe, and you sure as hell wouldnt want them to breathe on you. Sick City is appealing in its unsentimentalism, disgusting in its detailsand, almost unbelievably, funny.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)