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High Life (Little House on the Bowery) Paperback – January 1, 2002

by Matthew Stokoe (Author)
4.1 4.1 out of 5 stars 186 ratings
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Fiction. Jack had gone to Hollywood with one ambition: to become famous, a star, exactly how he didn't care. He just wanted to be like the people whose lives he followed in gossip magazines...Instead he found a world more seedy than anything he could have imagined, a world of whores and deceit, snuff shows, incest, drugs-and despair. After his wife, Karen, a hooker, is murdered and disemboweled, he meets Bella, a beautiful woman of immense wealth. In her he sees a change to make his dreams come true. As it turn out, though, his nightmare is only beginning. "...An elaborately drawn, surgically accurate Hollywood dystopia..."-Ellen Miller. "Stokoe proves himself a worthy heir to the great tradition of California noir"-Henry Flesh.
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  1. Print length
    326 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Akashic Books
  4. Publication date
    January 1, 2002
  5. Dimensions
    5 x 0.75 x 8.5 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    1888451327
  7. ISBN-13
    978-1888451320
  8. See all details
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The Amazon Book Review
The Amazon Book Review
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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Set against the sweltering, noirish backdrop of Los Angeles where "money is part of the architecture of the city," this bleak, violent novel upholds English author Stokoe's reputation for gritty, sordid fiction (Cows). Jack, a drugged-out tabloid fanatic and wannabe Hollywood star, grows worried when his wife, Karen, a street prostitute, goes missing for several days. He discovers that she has been murdered ("gutted like a fish") and that he is under investigation by Ryan, a sleazy minor vice cop, who takes on the homicide case himself since he was previously one of Karen's customers. Jack makes a promise to himself to find Karen's killer while supporting himself by becoming a hustler. Stokoe's plot thickens by way of urban legend. Before her disappearance, Karen confessed to Jack that she had sold one of her kidneys for $30,000 to a mysterious doctor trawling Hollywood Boulevard. After a succession of vile sex dates, Jack winds up face-to-face with Bella and Powell Vernier, an incestuous father and daughter surgical team who might be implicated in Karen's murder. Accusations and dead bodies (not to mention necrophilia) emerge just as Jack's acting career begins to take off. Stokoe's in-your-face prose and raw, unnerving scenes give way to a skillfully plotted (though largely implausible) tale that will keep readers glued to the page, if they can stomach the gratuitous obscenities and the excessively graphic descriptions of sex and violence (and violent sex). Stokoe's protagonist is as gritty and brutal as they come, which will frighten away the chaste crowd, but the author's target Bret Easton Ellis audience could turn this one into a word-of-mouth success.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

How does a contemporary author update classic noir writers like James M. Cain and Jim Thompson? For Stokoe (Cows), the solution is to ratchet up the sex by several notches. Jack, an English transplant to Los Angeles, is totally immersed not only in bodily fluids but also in the mythos of Hollywood. He gains sustenance from obsessing about the lives of every Tom, Brad, and Leonardo in Hollywood - which comes at the expense of what passes for his real life. For about a year, he's been married to a practicing prostitute who has recently sold one of her kidneys. When she goes missing, he goes out to find her (or her body), an attempt that plops him amid a cast of kinky characters, including porn-star Rex and police officer Ryan, who leaves a trail of slime in his wake. Above all, though, are Bella and Powell, who give new meaning to the concept of keeping their marriage fresh. While Stokoe has the noir cadences and atmosphere down pat, and Ryan is a character of quintessential sleaziness, the relentless rough sex ultimately becomes as boring and mechanical as thumbing through Richard von Krafft-Ebing's Psychopathia Sexualis. Purchase where demand warrants. - Bob Lunn, Kansas City P.L., MO
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Akashic Books (January 1, 2002)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 326 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1888451327
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1888451320
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 13.1 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5 x 0.75 x 8.5 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.1 4.1 out of 5 stars 186 ratings

About the author

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Matthew Stokoe

Matthew Stokoe

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Matthew Stokoe is widely considered to be one of the most original and exciting writers of the last twenty years. Translated and published around the world, his books have set new boundaries in urban horror and gritty, pull-no-punches noir.

Dennis Cooper said of Stokoe’s first novel, COWS: “Enormously disturbing and transcendently clever, Cows, a literally eviscerating portrait of life among the British lower classes, is revered internationally as one of the most daring English-language novels of the past few decades.”

After COWS, Stokoe turned his sights on Hollywood, producing the now-famous HIGH LIFE – both a page-turning mystery and one of the most brutal critiques of Tinsel Town ever committed to fiction. Ken Bruen said of it: “...Chandler on heroin, Hammett on crack, James M. Cain with a blowtorch. The writing is a knuckleduster to the brain, a chainsaw to the gut...”

Stokoe has continued to explore his uniquely dark view of lives lived in the modern world, and in 2014 was nominated for the Grand Prix de Littérature Policière – France’s most prestigious crime writing award – for his novel, EMPTY MILE.

COLONY OF WHORES, his latest novel, is now available.

Critical Praise for Matthew Stokoe

"Stokoe's in-your-face prose and raw, unnerving scenes give way go a skillfully plotted tale that will keep readers glued to the page."

Publishers Weekly (High Life)

"Heartbreakingly powerful contemporary noir... Stokoe stays true to a bleak vision of the world as he enmeshes his characters in the kinds of tragic setups reminiscent of a Thomas Hardy novel."

Publishers Weekly (Empty Mile)

"If you enjoy the sensation of your jaw dropping to the floor in a combination of stupefaction, hilarity, and shock, Cows is your book. Matthew Stokoe has written a novel like no other I've ever read - appalling, funny, and possessed of a sense of outre violence that makes Joris-Karl Huysmans read like Louisa May Alcott."

Scott Phillips, author of The Ice Harvest (Cows)

"Beautifully written and deeply gripping, Empty Mile is a great read. I'm already looking forward to the next one from Matthew Stokoe."

Michael Connelly, author of The Wrong Side of Goodbye (Empty Mile)

"One of the most unstinting, imaginative, brutal and original contemporary novels ever written about the punishments that come with the prioritization of fame..."

Dennis Cooper author of The Marbled Swarm (High Life)

"This book has everything a good crime novel should: a suspenseful story with violence at its core, characters driven by lust, love and guilt, propelled with prose that's poetic and profound."

Carole E. Barrowman, Milwaukee Wisconsin Journal Sentinel (Empty Mile)

www.matthewstokoe.com

Customer reviews

4.1 out of 5 stars
4.1 out of 5
186 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Doll Peule
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent!
Reviewed in the United States on October 8, 2023
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High Life by Matthew Stokoe, is perfect, I loved it!
It is the kind of book you’d recommend in a discussion about original works in literature, or the kind of book that other authors would be inspired by.
In my opinion Matthew Stokoe is a very good writer. High Life is the second book by him, that I have read, and I enjoyed it very much too. Matthew Stokoe has a unique writing style, that I’m fond off.
In this book the main character is Jack, a self centered man, who is very determined to be like his idols in the entertainment industry. He wants to be famous. At first I thought he wasn’t ambitious enough for his dreams, and that he was doing everything wrong, and that he was too lazy to accomplish anything. But I was wrong.
The story takes place in Los Angeles, a city I never visited, but heard of in movies. But this aspect of the city that Matthew Stokoe introduced me to, was totally foreign to me. Los Angeles is described as the city where all the depraved acts one can think of, are possible if one has money.
Jack doesn’t have money his wife had been brutally murder, so his life is spiraling more and more into Los Angeles’ chaos. He is introduced to snuff shows, prostitution, many drugs, and more atrocities, by Rex and Ryan. Lucky for him, he meets Bella, a charismatic wealthy woman who could help him become famous. But would she?
In this story kindness doesn’t exist, nothing is free, there’s always a sick price to pay.
However Jack is ready to do anything to live the life he dreamed of. He doesn’t have limits, and he lacks empathy.
I won’t say more, because I’m afraid of saying too much. But, in conclusion I would say that all the characters are despicable and very well written. The writing style kept me captivated. I really wanted to know how the mystery around the crime would be resolved. I liked the story atmosphere, it reminded me of the noir crime movies.
I highly recommend High Life, if you don’t have triggers, because this book is vile beyond your imagination.
2 people found this helpful
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Schtinky
5.0 out of 5 stars Twisted modernly poetic tale of yearning & brutal sexuality
Reviewed in the United States on November 16, 2004
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When I read Stokoe's first novel `Cows' I knew I was onto something good. His second novel, `High Life' is a tragic and poetic journey into the human soul.

High Life is a story told by Jack, a guy who just wants to play the game by the rules and get ahead in the competitive world of Los Angeles, a man obsessed with the personalities he sees on the TV screen every day. Jack is basically lonely, and winds out marrying a hooker named Karen, embarking on a two-year marriage that gets neither of them anywhere. But there is comfort in having someone there at the end of the day, someone to look out for, and when Karen is brutally murdered, Jack's outlook on the world changes. Only weeks before Karen's murder, Jack found out that she had sold one of her kidneys for thirty thousand dollars, and when her mutilated body is found, the scar had been removed.

Jack no longer believes that working hard and obeying the rules will get anyone ahead, and embarks on a new career of hustling down in the seedy side of Hollywood. He gets hooked up with his friend Rex, who introduces him to an escort agency, which caters to a finer, wealthier class of clients. From here he meets Bella, an extremely wealthy woman with perverted tastes. Bella takes an interest in Jack, and with her wealth and power gets him a spot on a Hollywood Gossip show, introducing him to the finer things and people he only dreamed about knowing.

In the meantime, policeman Ted Ryan is hot on Jack's trail, not because he works homicide, but because he knew Jack's wife Karen in a professional way, having been a frequent client. Ryan is not a good cop, perverted and psychotic, and he peruses Jack with relentless viciousness, even into the posh Malibu home of Bella and her father Powell, where the three become linked over Karen's death.

High Life is not a pretty tale, there is not one redeemable character in it. It is filled with drug abuse, prostitution, violent couplings, necrophilia, fecal stimulations, foul language, and operations that make medical malpractice look like tea parties. It is brutal, ugly, violent, and unforgiving. So why did I like it so much?

Matthew Stokoe is a truly gifted writer, I felt every ounce of pain that Jack felt though Stokoe's vivid and animated prose. His ability to project Jack's feelings of despair, isolation, yearning, and desperation is remarkable. High Life is one of those books that, when I finished, I found it hard to pick up another book because I had been so involved in Jack's life that nothing else measured up. There was just so much emotion in this story, desolation and bitterness and a hurtful longing for what society tells us we need to have and be to belong, that I was overcome with the same sensations that drove Jack to his deviant lifestyle choices.

You had better have a strong stomach for the nastier scenes of sexual defecation and corpse manipulation, not to mention Bella's secret little fetish with fresh human organs, but if gross horror is your cup of tea, you absolutely must pick up High Life and give it a read. I can't wait to see what Matthew Stokoe comes up with next. Enjoy!!
13 people found this helpful
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Faulkner
3.0 out of 5 stars there is nothing else like it. I read Empty Mile first
Reviewed in the United States on August 2, 2017
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This isn't noir as promised. It's pornography. Ken Bruen is right, there is nothing else like it. I read Empty Mile first, which is no preparation for this. Actually, nothing can prepare you for this.
3 people found this helpful
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Kindle Customer Dan Spettle
4.0 out of 5 stars Wow can't stop reading
Reviewed in the United States on November 11, 2023
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I've read Cows and now this. I'm going to take a break before I read his next. Sometimes you like you should go to Confession for enjoying this so much.
One person found this helpful
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Alice
5.0 out of 5 stars I love it!!!
Reviewed in the United States on December 8, 2023
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I definitely enjoyed this book. It was a little bit slow to start, but sucked me in after a while. Jack was a shallow, pathetic man that I felt bad for but also hated because he didn’t care about anything but becoming known. Ryan was a very fun character, I was very attached to him. All around, a very fun book. I was happy with the ending but can’t help wondering what jack is up to now
2 people found this helpful
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lucykate
5.0 out of 5 stars A genre favorite
Reviewed in the United States on May 13, 2021
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This book is absolutely as disturbing and depraved as people say. That being said, it has become one of my favorites. It is a noir Hollywood story and will completely hold your interest the whole time. The Hollywood underbelly is always an interesting topic and it feels like I'm seeing something I'm not supposed to. It's well-written and is an easy read if you are able to stomach the content. I have already read this book twice and recommended it to anyone who is a fan of the horror lit genre.
4 people found this helpful
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FBI Informant
2.0 out of 5 stars Main Character sucks
Reviewed in the United States on January 26, 2016
Somewhat of a story but it felt like the author was more concerned with the shock value than a decent story.
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R. Ramirez
5.0 out of 5 stars What A LIFE!!!...
Reviewed in the United States on September 2, 2008
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Wow, this is an amazing story line of living vicariously through the eyes of the other side, the kind we don't talk about but love to listen too...Just imagine doing and seeing all you have ever dreamed of or having all your wicked thoughts come true in the worst way...pretty scary to say the least. It puts a whole new spin on morbid grieving and searching for your own soul, only to find out you were capable of enduring the unspeakable...The style of writing is so well written, takes you places you love to be (High Life) and places you wish didn't exist like (Low Life) reality...Must read...
3 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Gripping
Reviewed in Canada on July 31, 2021
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Fantastic. Gripping. A little but psychotic.
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gruffalo
5.0 out of 5 stars irresistibly exciting for the noir reader
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 24, 2013
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What I like about this book is that the descriptions make the vile acts so realistic that you can almost taste the scene. It depicts human nature at its worst and most depraved. Maybe it shows how people really are in certain industries. The only part I sort of cringed a lot at was when Jack had to hang onto a guy while a cop cut him open and pulled out his entrails. I am not sure why it was the most shocking part. But it felt very very real. There are a lot of little trinkets of wisdom amongst these pages and some funny lines too. I wont give any spoilers cos this book is well worth reading. It is well written with excellent descriptions. I will be interested to read the author's new book when it comes out. I only have the last one left and I am going to savour that in the hope he finishes the new one soon.
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Von Arx Michael
5.0 out of 5 stars Ein Meisterwerk des Grauens!!!
Reviewed in Germany on June 7, 2012
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Diese Buch reiht sich ein in die Klasse von James Ellroys "Die schwarze Dahlie", Brett Easton's "American Psycho" und de Sade's " Die 120 Tage von Sodom".
Stilistisch wunderbar in der Art von Raymond Chandler gehalten, übersteigt es diesen, in der Darstellung von Perversionen, die ich nicht für möglich gehalten hätte.
Ich wusste nicht was Fenching ist, bis ich dieses Buch gelesen habe. Echt krass! Manchmal locker schwebend, wie sein Protagonist Jack, wird man plötzlich von
sexueller Gewalt, Entgleisungen gröbster Art, schockiert, so dass dieses Buch sich für ewig ins Gehirn einbrennt. Ist sowas überhaupt möglich, fragt man sich des
Öfteren. Kann man mit Geld wirklich alles kaufen? Ist jeder käuflich? Leider muss ich nach der Lektüre diese Fragen mit ja beantworten, diese Dinge passieren
wohl wirklich und sind nicht Stokoe's Fantasiegebilde. Wir wollen dies nur nicht wahr haben, den wir gehören ja nicht zur Klasse der reichen und berühmten
Menschen. Aber würden wir dazu gehören, uns alles leisten können, was man mit Geld sich leisten kann, was wäre dann. Würden wir uns nicht auch ohne
Ausnahme, in käufliche Perversionen steigern, nur weil das übliche Leben nicht mehr so "kickt"?
Dieses Buch ist ein Meisterwerk und jetzt schon ein Klassiker, der die Augen öffnet, wo wir sie am liebsten geschlossen halten würden.
Wow, unglaublich, aber wahr!!!
4 people found this helpful
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Eraserhead
4.0 out of 5 stars Eine krude Mischung aus American Psycho und Basic Instinct
Reviewed in Germany on August 3, 2019
Verified Purchase
Jack will dazu gehören. Für ihn gibt es kein Leben außerhalb der High Society. Er definiert sich selbst einzig und allein über die Welt der Stars und Berühmtheiten. Alles andere hat für ihn keine Bedeutung.
Die Geschichte zeigt gnadenlos die Abgründe der Menschheit auf und man findet keinen Charakter, der nicht in irgendeiner Form korrupt ist. Durch Stokoes intelligenten Schreibstil kann man sich dabei aber durchaus mit den Protagonisten identifizieren. Der Leser wird zum stillen Beobachter von Jack auf seinem Weg nach oben, zum Voyeur, der seinen Blick auf die schrecklichen Geschehnisse nicht abwenden kann.
Anders als in American Psycho geht es weniger um die Dekadenz der Gesellschaft oder um bloße Konsumkritik. In High Life steht das Individuum im Mittelpunkt. Was macht der Wunsch ein Star zu sein aus einem Menschen? Spielen Moralvorstellungen noch eine Rolle? Inwieweit lässt man sich korrumpieren? Woher kommt der Wunsch berühmt zu sein?
Um diese Fragen zu beantworten geht Stokoe nicht gerade zimperlich um, wobei aber Sex und Gewalt nicht selbstzweckhaft dargestellt werden. Abartige Sexszenen, Nekrophilie (die Toten, mit denen Jack sich buchstäblich umgibt) und sonstige Perversitäten stehen metaphorisch für den Lebensstil, den Jack anstrebt.

Leider ist die Geschichte teilweise vorhersehbar und die Suche nach dem Mörder kommt etwas holprig daher. Deshalb nur 4 Sterne. Trotzdem klare Empfehlung!
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mark68068
5.0 out of 5 stars A tour de force in new wave thriller writing
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 15, 2004
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This must rate as one of the most oustanding of modern horror thrillers. Horror, not as in the traditional horror genre, but is in horrifying. Despite the occasionally unsavoury subject matter of Stokoe's writing, this is a rollercoaster ride in terms of plot tension and excitement mixed with terrifying and gratuitous situations. Stokoe's imagination is unlimited in its ferocious approach to fiction. Outrageous moments flash out of nowhere and leave the reader breathless with terror and surprise. In the midst of all this is a complex tale of real mystery and suspense. It's a great story apart from anything, its just that when the added gut churning aspects are thrown in the book becomes a triumph of lewd and degrading twists.
4 people found this helpful
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