Jerry Stahl with Eric Bogosian on ‘Gonzo Neurotic’ (New York)
September 30, 5:30 PM ET • New York, NY: Housing Works Bookstore Cafe | 126 Crosby Street, New York, NY 10012
Join ZE Books at Housing Works Bookstore Cafe for the New York 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 Eric Bogosian.
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
Eric Bogosian is a playwright, novelist, and actor. His play Talk Radio was a finalist for the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for Drama; the Oliver Stone film, in which he starred, won him a Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival. He has written subUrbia, filmed by Richard Linklater, and Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll, and has won three Obie Awards for his solo performances. His books include the novels Mall, Wasted Beauty, and Perforated Heart, and the history Operation Nemesis: The Assassination Plot That Avenged the Armenian Genocide. On screen he has appeared in Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Billions, Succession, Uncut Gems, and Interview with the Vampire.
About the Venue
Housing Works Bookstore Cafe is a volunteer-run bookstore and cafe on Crosby Street in SoHo, in a two-storey room of wooden balconies and second-hand stock. Every dollar it takes supports Housing Works’ mission to end the twin crises of AIDS and homelessness, and its events programme has run readings, launches, and concerts there for close to thirty years. housingworks.org
“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