Jerry Stahl with Marc Maron on ‘Gonzo Neurotic’ (Los Angeles)
September 23, 7:00 PM PT • Los Angeles, CA: Stories Books & Cafe | 1716 W. Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90026
Join ZE Books at Stories Books & Cafe for the Los Angeles launch of Gonzo Neurotic: The Best (and Not So Best) of Jerry Stahl, fifty years of sex, drugs, show business, and bad behavior from the laureate of American excess. Stahl will be joined in conversation by Marc Maron.
Long before descending into the underworld of addiction in Permanent Midnight—the memoir, and later film, that made him famous—Jerry Stahl had built a singular career reporting from America’s psychic gutters and cultural sideshows. Ricocheting from porn sets, televangelists, undertaker conventions, recovery culture, and all manner of Hollywood grotesquerie, he fearlessly explored the darker territory of heroin, fatherhood, Jewish identity, and survival.
In Gonzo Neurotic, Stahl brings together the New Journalism that shaped his voice, interlaced with his own wild-ass commentary on his youthful lunacy and catastrophic life choices. Spanning the 1970s to the 2020s, the book takes readers from the “wet heart of Pageantland” at the Miss America contest to the twisted realms of post-nuclear cult erotica, to the TV show ALF, and to the extremes of midnight moviedom, alongside profiles of Marlon Brando, Samuel L. Jackson, and Benicio del Toro.
About the Author
Jerry Stahl is the author of eleven books, including the best-selling novel I, Fatty and the narcotic memoir Permanent Midnight, made into a movie starring Ben Stiller. Nein, Nein, Nein!: One Man’s Tale of Depression, Psychic Torment, and a Bus Tour of the Holocaust was named one of Kirkus Reviews’ 100 Best Nonfiction Books of 2022. His journalism and fiction have appeared in Esquire, The Believer, VICE, and The New York Times, and his screen credits include Maron, ALF, Twin Peaks, and Showtime’s Escape at Dannemora, for which he received an Emmy nomination.
About the Interlocutor
Marc Maron is a comedian, actor, and writer who hosted WTF with Marc Maron from 2009 until its final episode in the fall of 2025—sixteen years and more than 1,600 conversations, closing with Barack Obama, a guest he had first recorded in his garage in 2015. He has acted in GLOW, Maron, Joker, and Respect, written the books The Jerusalem Syndrome and Attempting Normal, and released the HBO stand-up special Panicked in 2025.
About the Venue
Stories Books & Cafe opened in Echo Park in 2008. The shelves run to new and used fiction, art books, film history, and titles from independent L.A. publishers; the cafe pours coffee, beer, and wine. Readings, music, and comedy fill the back room most weeks. storiesla.com
“Jerry Stahl should either get the Pulitzer prize or be shot down in the street like a dog.” —Anthony Bourdain
Fifty years of sex, drugs, show business, and bad behavior from the inimitable laureate of American excess, Jerry Stahl.
Release: Sep 22, 2026
Paperback ISBN: 9798988670186 • 456 pages
UK release: Nov 5, 2026 • UK Price: £14.99