Everybody Smokes in Hell

by John Ridley

John Ridley -- author of Stray Dogs and Love Is a Racket -- is back with a scathingly funny, outrageous new novel that chronicles the mayhem unleashed by the misadventures of one hapless young man trying to make it in Hollywood.

Paris Scott can't make anything work out. A failed Hollywood screenwriter, he works nights at a convenience store, and drives a '74 Gremlin. And he was just dumped by his best girl. But when the last master tape of a freshly-suicided rock star and a small fortune's worth of stolen drugs fall into his lap, he seems to have stumbled on the key to his dreams.

It might as well be a neutron bomb.

Although the people who want the dope get themselves dangerously confused with the people who want the tape, it's clear to everyone that Paris is the target. And how does a guy who's wanted dead stay alive? "Get out of town, get some money, then get more out of town." Paris puts his Gremlin in gear and the resulting chase and chain- reaction madness stretches from Los Angeles to Las Vegas leaving a trail of blood, bodies, and broken hearts in its wake.

Dope dealers, Hollywood agents, two-bit criminals, three-bit criminals, waitresses, rock stars, strippers, beautiful women, not-so-beautiful women, honest working Joes and psychopaths -- no one comes out clean in this raucous romp-and-stomp. It's John Ridley at his most devilishly sly, laying out proof that, without a doubt, everybody smokes in hell.

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Noir, Thriller, Crime, Audiobook, Humor

256 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

John Ridley IV (born October 1965)[2] is an American screenwriter, television director, novelist, and showrunner, known for 12 Years a Slave, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. He is also the creator and showrunner of the critically acclaimed anthology series American Crime. His most recent work is the documentary film Let It Fall: Los Angeles 1982–1992.


Librarian Note:
There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
This profile may contain books from multiple authors of this name.

Reviews

[🐴 🍖]

overwhelmingly '90s. grotesquely '90s, like joey buttafuoco performing 'steal my sunshine.' a master class in relentless pacing; unfortunately that seems to come @ the expense of fully realized setting, offbeat dialogue, etc -- in short there's a missing dollop of auteur-ness that places a gulf b/w this and e.g. a pulp fiction, despite double the macguffins. still, bring this one along on your next interstate bus trip & watch how the tempus fugits

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Everybody Smokes in Hell" is "A Hero of Our Time" for OUR Time. The best brief review of this book would need only to plagiarize a few words from Lermontov:

This, "my dear readers... is a portrait built up of all our generation's vices in full bloom."

"Everybody Smokes..." is a distillation of the essence of downward spiraling America into concentrate form. The characters here are pathetic losers at best and psychopathic criminals at worst, regardless of station in life. The plot is one foul up and misunderstanding after another, compounding each other towards a denouement into one of two predictable but worth-it endings (you have to read it to find out which). As a bonus you get some of the most gruesome and memorable death scenes this side of a cheesy teen horror flick.

This is literature reflecting a country that is in the process of inventing MTV "reality" television. This is literature of what a country gets when it doesn't fund education or create jobs. You couldn't possibly think up such characters or plot-lines in an educated, humane, and socialist Scandinavian country. "Only in (meth smoking and Oxycontin popping) America."

Now if only Ridley would turn his eyes towards a novel about investment banks.

[Lauren Stoolfire · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you enjoy classic hard-boiled crime fiction and film noir, you'll probably enjoy Everybody Smokes in Hell by John Ridley. It's a very visual, gritty nineties noir with a dark sense of humor, wicked ultra-violence, and dialogue that just scream off the page.

[Krista Bac · Rating 3 out of 5]

Het moet nog even marineren wat ik hiervan vind.
Je merkt iig dat hij schrijft als regisseur en dat is wel interessant en het boek is hilarisch en smerig tegelijk

[Shawn · Rating 2 out of 5]

The question rattling my brainpan that might cinch up exactly how I feel about this book is How seriously am I supposed to be taking this book? Feautring wall to wall violence, casual and direct racism, a loser with no prospects on the run yet is irresistible to women and 95% of the characters being caricatures...is this a parody? Or is it supposed to be a cheap thrill ride with deeper context about money, race, class and dreaming about being famous?

I do not honestly know.
The book starts with a character diving headfirst into shit and never manages to come back up for air.

I liked Brice, though. She was interesting.

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Considering my summer has been filled with books about seedy characters groping their way through harsh underbellies (usually of LA), imagine my surprise when this one grabbed me about 30 pages in and didn't let go until I finished the next 200 within 24 hours. Fast, dirty, and wrong in all the right ways.

[Zellain Dystopia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. It's dark, the language is interesting and it's certainly not for everyone. If you like tragedies and books where nothing is resolved and life just goes on, more messed up than before, you might like this one.

[Frederick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Everybody Smokes In Hell by John Ridley - This was a pretty good book. I liked the story. It falls right in line with the type of dark and twisted humor I like in a decent mystery. I guess that is what you would call this book - a mystery - more or less anyway. I'd been wanting to read some John Ridley for awhile now. I've got a few of his books and I chose this one to read first. I had already seen the film U-Turn, a damn good flick, which is an adaptation of his book Stray Dogs. So, I was fairly confident that I'd like his writing, and for the most part I did. There was one thing he did that seemed to be a bit of a habit of his that I found rather annoying at times. He would begin a statement, then halfway through that statement he would expound on an idea within that statement, sometimes quite elaborately. Then he would go on to finish the original statement, expecting you to remember what the hell he had started out saying. Other than that I enjoyed the book and I will certainly read others of his.

[Hannah · Rating 1 out of 5]

A book about idiots being idiots. Not my usual cup of tea but a book group read. It was more can’t pick it up than can’t put it down.
It’s written a bit like a screenplay, a poor audition for a Tarantino film. It’s all short sentences and short chapters, perhaps John thinks we all have a short attention span. Its mainly about sex and violence, it’s not intelligently written so it just felt gratuitous.
It’s not funny, perhaps I just didn’t get it. I was reminded of ‘On the road’ by Jack Kerouac. Which also wasn’t for me.
All the characters are awful so there’s nobody to root for. The main character stole from a suicidal drug addict, hardly endearing. I didn’t want him to be murdered but I wasn’t invested in his success. I was on his ex-girlfriend’s side.

There’s loads of uncomfortable stereotypes that make it feel incredibly dated. It’s sexist and racist.

It does get slightly more interesting towards the end. However the finale is disappointing.

[steph · Rating 3 out of 5]

funny, witty, and very sarcastic, but the plot seems contrived. protagonist is wishy-washy, like holden caulfield. seems to just go with the flow instead of intelligently thinking about how to extricate himself from the ridiculous in which situations he finds himself. or rather, in which he puts himself.
if you're looking for some easy reading for a long trip, a vacation, or just some brainless reading, this could be it. not so brainless that it insults your intelligence, but not so convoluted that you need to think to keep up with the action.

[Matthew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Holy Shit! This book was beyond fantastic, the writing style was both humorous and grotesque at the same time, lacking in neither. Wickedly entertaining to read, you cannot put this sucker down. It was as if I was reading Grand Theft Auto: The Novel... Read this book if you want to experience the degenerate livelihood of the inhabitants of Los Angeles.

[Chilly SavageMelon · Rating 1 out of 5]

Garbage. Waffer thin characters trapped in an "ironic", shitty, racist and violent world. Trash pulp writers like Ridley are those who show up to crash the party once Tarrantino has made the guest list-

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

"This book is a work of fiction. Any similarities between the miscreants in this story and the actual insipid degenerates who populate the city I hate more than cancer is purely coincidental. Anyone claiming to be represented in this novel is suffering from severe closet-psychotic ego issues that would best be dealt with immediately." Just from that opening disclaimer, I'd have known that Everybody Smokes in Hell was from the 90s. Published in '99 to be exact, it contains, as others have noted, nearly every element of your standard Tarantino knockoff, ranging from its structure of interlocking MacGuffin-focused schemes and counter-schemes set among chatty pop-culture-savvy criminals and criminal-adjacent types (though I did think the novel's central MacGuffin, another element as 90s as it gets- the final recording of a suicidal alternative-rock singer named, heh, Ian Jermaine- was original enough), to a character who gets tortured while the torturer is gleefully boogying around to music, to multiple references to foot massages. I've seen a fair number of bad Tarantino knockoffs over the years (Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead, 2 Days in the Valley), and even a couple I actually like (Go, and...actually, I think Go is the only one I like), but by and large they remind me to appreciate Tarantino even if I'm not the world's biggest fan of everything he's done, remind me that his dialogue and control of tone aren't as easy to pull off as they sometimes seem to be. He's often jokey, sure, but that doesn't mean farcical. This novel, like some of the bad knockoffs, often felt on the verge of farce- without committing entirely to that, either. It never seemed to take its characters quite seriously enough for me to care, and was in fact (as the disclaimer suggested) pretty contemptuous of them, so that they tended to be less characters than opportunities for John Ridley to vent what annoyed him about different types of people. That said, there were scenes in which sincerity seemed to poke its head out (like a black character's recollection of getting dropped off by the police late at night, in a notoriously racist part of Chicago), occasionally some genuinely funny dialogue (I laughed out loud when I realized it was being heavily implied that one of the characters had killed Tupac), and Ridley brought all the schemes and counter-schemes to a bloody and pretty entertaining climax in Vegas. One character's very brief reflections on that city, no more than a few lines of dialogue ("It's clean, it's bright, and it's the only place in the world you can get prime rib for $5.99. It just...don't make sense"), seemed far more poignant and interesting to me than the novel's long-running theme up to that point, hammered home repeatedly, to the effect that LA is an unforgiving place where they chew you up and spit you out (I think I'd heard that one before). Anyway, this was a fun, quick, painless read overall- just not one that I imagine will stick in my memory.

[Silv · Rating 1 out of 5]

I picked this up from the library… the cover art ( a different edition ) caught my attention, as did the blurb on the inside sleeve. It seemed like an action-packed book. I couldn’t wait to start reading it.
When I tell you, I’ve never read a more terrible book…
It was predictable, and poorly written. I saw other reviews stating that it read like “a poor audition for a Tarantino film” and I couldn’t agree more. Written like a screenplay that aged TERRIBLY… racist remarks about EVERY ethnicity. Some chapters were written in such bad slang that it was barely readable… I had to skim over.
Overall, a terrible book that I thought would get better, and it never did. Halfway through; I realized and was going to add to my DNF list but I wanted to get it over with..
Please don’t waste your time. Put it down. Don’t read it.

[B. · Rating 1 out of 5]

The book reads like a screenplay, which makes it difficult to follow at times, though considering the author's primary vocation, this should come as no surprise. Additionally, there's a huge disparity between this book and Ridley's others, making it easy to see that this was one of his earlier efforts. That being said, the problem I have with this book is the latent racism and prejudice that constantly rears its head. It's not something I would want my kids reading or something that I would want anyone whose opinion I valued to ever associate with me. Ergo, it's not a worthwhile book. For the time it was written, this type of approval within the pages makes sense, even if it is not valued (and it's not), but this book just gets worse and more grotesque with age.

[Marty Solotki · Rating 5 out of 5]

Peter Francis James does an amazing job for Audible, narrating this gritty tale in the style of Pulp Fiction, by John Ridley. A colorful cast of characters almost randomly intermingle in a tsunami of theft, violence, and lust. One stolen tape and one misplaced bag of drugs, and a domino effect of insanity is off to the races! The dialogue and drama were both top-notch, and the book has a "machine-gun" style of prose...which is amazing, but a little overdone if I do say so, A definite must-listen.

[Sarmīte · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesanta grāmata, varbūt pelnījusi vairāk zvaigžņu, mana vaina - šī ir no grāmatām, kas jālasa ātri, jo sižets savērpts no tik daudziem pavedieniem, ka kādu var arī aizmirst:) Atsevišķs bonuss par autora krāšņajiem epitetiem, lai gan šķiet, ka grāmatas beigās tie aptrūkās:)

[Ruby · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm on the fence about this. It reads like a screenplay. The plot is great. The execution of the writing, not so much. It's very action-packed. I'd watch the movie, but the book missed a bit of mark. Very ambivalent about this one.

[Broken Bear · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book as a teenager so can only speak to how it read to someone of that age. Cool.

[Kamil Antczak · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is about a store clerk who happens to come across a homeless looking person and helps him out? the store clerk ends up talking him home, to a rich house in beverly hills which he doesnt expect.

Pg(54) the homeless person ends up being a rich rocker and dies at his house b/c he claims hes lived he life/ dream. His inheritance was left on tape next to him and stated(who ever here this first gets everything)so the store clerk got everything? 3/18/10

[Mark · Rating 2 out of 5]

You can tell the author is a screen writer and is working outside his usual genre. Many chapters are very short (1-2 pages), and you can tell that he is used to writing scenes. The book is pretty violent, and when you reach the end, you can easily picture the scene freezing, going black and credits rolling. Not even close to the greatest book I ever read, but it was entertaining. I use "entertaining" very loosely here.

[Jenine Young · Rating 2 out of 5]

The characters and language made me very uncomfortable at times. They were stereotypes (black people who were involved in gangs and drug feuds, white girls who were abused as children and turned into prostitutes because of their broken homes, Mexican girl who ekes through life in a dinner.)
The plot was silly but I enjoyed how the characters different plot lines wove together towards the end.
Overall it was violent, crass, and very focused on sex.

[Zach · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kind of dark and seedy with flashes of very dark humor (mostly from the hitman/hit person). The ending seemed rushed and was disappointing. You felt like it was heading toward this big finish and it kind of just ends and will not be completely satisfying for some readers.

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to give this more stars because it starts off really well but it gets a little convoluted in the middle and the characters seem kind of one dimensional. Still very entertaining and decently written regardless.

[Curt · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found the constant liberties John Ridley took with the English language irritating in this book. It would have been better if he focused on writing well rather than on creating a writing style.

[Lauren Donnell · Rating 3 out of 5]

Russell- I still can't believe that you liked this book that much! We have Jeff Glover to thank for it.

[Erin · Rating 1 out of 5]

for some reason, I thought this was going to be funny.

[Benjamin Siess · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great dialogue. Pulp Fiction-esque. The ebonics seem forced at times, but I don't really know how ebonics in literature couldn't seem forced. I'm looking forward to reading more Ridley.

[S.A. Cosby · Rating 4 out of 5]

a modern noir with a comic twist.. I love this book.. and the hitwoman is one of the scariest villains I ever encountered

[Davide · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pulp fiction rivisited: wicked, funny, violent and not to be taken seriously. A very enjoyable read.