Sick City: A Novel
Former heroin addict O’Neill 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 tightening—one subplot goes nowhere, while another is essential—but the characters are unforgettable; they live and breathe, and you sure as hell wouldn’t want them to breathe on you. Sick City is appealing in its unsentimentalism, disgusting in its details—and, almost unbelievably, funny. --Keir Graff