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Permanent Midnight

Jerry Stahl

3.94 · Rating details · 1,774 ratings · 134 reviews

His byline appeared everywhere, from L.A. Style to the Village Voice, from Esquire to Hustler. He penned scripts for twisted cult classics like Cafe Flesh and Dr. Caligari. He banged out shows for TV mega-hits like Moonlighting, Twin Peaks, and thirtysomething. But even when Jerry Stahl was making five grand a week, he was shooting six. Careening from his luxury home to L. ...more

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Trade Paperback, 371 pages

Published June 2005 by Process

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Dec 03, 2014 Scott rated it really liked it

Shelves: memoir, favourites

Permanent Midnight sets its tone in the first few pages, beginning with its author - Jerry Stahl - wearing a diaper to soak up the blood from his bleeding, post-op testicles. From there it descends into a story of debasement and self-loathing that is one of the finest and most enjoyable memoirs I’ve read.

Permanent Midnight is a crazy, strung-out taxi ride though a life where a near unquenchable addiction met a salary almost big enough to slake it. This is no rock’n’roll I-took-lots-of-drugs-and- Permanent Midnight sets its tone in the first few pages, beginning with its author - Jerry Stahl - wearing a diaper to soak up the blood from his bleeding, post-op testicles. From there it descends into a story of debasement and self-loathing that is one of the finest and most enjoyable memoirs I’ve read.

Permanent Midnight is a crazy, strung-out taxi ride though a life where a near unquenchable addiction met a salary almost big enough to slake it. This is no rock’n’roll I-took-lots-of-drugs-and-went-a-bit-far memoir. This is a dirty, life ruining, career ruining story where the profoundly negative impact of Stahl’s substance use on his life is never far from the reader’s mind.

This is a fascinating tale of a motivated man who combined a powerful work ethic with self-hatred and drug abuse. Jerry Stahl is a guy who would go for regular jogs, but would blast himself with a dose of speed beforehand so he could run faster. He regularly got into work early so he could prepare an intravenous breakfast speedball and sterilise his needle with the office bottle of photocopier cleaner. This is a guy who started out writing for adult magazines and on porn films and became a successful screenwriter in the eighties, pulling down five large a week at his peak. Remember ALF? Stahl wrote for that show. Moonlighting? That one too. And he hated all of it, with a self-loathing passion that fueled his habit.

We see Stahl (who is Jewish) befriending a neo-nazi drug dealer (complete with Swastika tattoos), taking his baby daughter along to heroin deals, flaking out in a toilet during an important production meeting, and explaining the strange, perma-long-sleeved life of the injecting drug user. He lives a tightrope double life of public success and secret squalor, blowing his relationships and opportunities for genuine, meaningful work while he pumps out dross for the shows that employ him. There’s no happy ending here. Stahl doesn’t cheat his readers with false redemption, rather he records his descent in full, and gives us the full trajectory of his dissolution.

The bestselling story of a drug addict’s fall from the top to rock bottom (and back up again after the publication of said bestseller) is a publishing cliché, but Stahl’s story transcends the genre. What separates Permanent Midnight from the masses of such stories is Stahl’s ever-present dark humour. Stahl possesses a sharp wit, an eye for his own absurdities and the writing chops to bring seriously funny moments into an otherwise grim tale - I was genuinely appalled by his story almost as often as I laughed aloud, and I laughed aloud a lot.

This book is a real ride, and I’ve not read a more memorable story of addiction and its consequences. Permanent Midnight, is an important work in the drugs-ruined-my-life genre, right up there with Burroughs’ Junky.
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Oct 08, 2014 Ryan Leone rated it it was amazing

Years ago, I had a great job working as a media broker for a major television network. I was also heavily addicted to heroin and crack. So here I am going to network meetings in L.A, nodding in and out, and trying to balance both lives simultaneously. One of my best friends told me that my life was remiscent of a guy named Jerry Stahl and reccomended the Ben Stiller film, Permanant Midnight. I really identified with it.

Fast forward a few years later and I am jobless, scoring in East L.A, and sel Years ago, I had a great job working as a media broker for a major television network. I was also heavily addicted to heroin and crack. So here I am going to network meetings in L.A, nodding in and out, and trying to balance both lives simultaneously. One of my best friends told me that my life was remiscent of a guy named Jerry Stahl and reccomended the Ben Stiller film, Permanant Midnight. I really identified with it.

Fast forward a few years later and I am jobless, scoring in East L.A, and selling large quantities of heroin. I got busted and was hauled off to federal prison for four years. I rememebered the movie and knew that it was a also a book. So I had my dad order it.

Jerry Stahl is one of the genuine talents of his generation. The book blew me away. I'd classify it as a literary memoir, Stahl really flexes his writing muscles and tells his story in a refreshingly honest way. It wasn't self-indulgant as some reviewers have lamented. This was an indictment on the materialistic, ego-driven, who-do-you-know, world of Hollywood. This guy knows what he's talking about and it seems that some readers have mistaken his sincerity for something they don't understand because they haven't inhabited the world he desribes.

Another complaint that reviewers seem to have is that his story somehow lacks validity because he was given so many opportunities for success. The fact of the matter is that he is a great writer. He attended Colombia University and worked his way from a seedy Hustler magazine job to writing for various television programs. He earned the opportunities presented to him. And heroin addiction doesn't discriminate... It can sink its claws into you no matter what socioeconomic class you are part of. Addiction is still just as horrific and the struggles are just as arresting.

Humor really makes this memoir standout as the masterpiece that it is. Humor is the last coping mechanism that an addict has, after all of their other emotional responses have been stripped away. When I was an addict I made everything a joke, no matter the degree of damage I was inflicting on myself. When I was arrested, when I contracted hepatitis c, when I had to get a puss-filled abcess lanced; it was all something to laugh off. The majority of memoirs about drug addiction are overly morose. They talk about the misery and never make light of it. Consequently, they lack emotional honesty. This memoir examined addiction and was sure to point out its absurdity when it was needed, all done so in this dark satirical way, that any true junkie will find humor, truth, and comfort in. ...more

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Oct 20, 2009 Ann M rated it really liked it

Shelves: nonfiction

This book captures the love affair an addict has with drugs. This book oozes love -- no matter what Stahl says about how ugly it was, he was in love with it and you can hear how lovingly he describes his awful behavior. He remembers every last detail as if he kept a scrapbook. As if he loves it still, the glamor (in the old-fashioned sense of having a spell put on you) of the powerlessness and the high. He was making a lot of money, which lessened the dangerous aspects of being a junkie. He was ...more

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Oct 13, 2019 Carla Remy rated it liked it

I always wanted to read this, because Stahl wrote for Moonlighting and that is my all time favorite TV show (the way probably only a show you loved when you were 10 can be). And it turns out that he worked on multiple shows I was familiar with because of my young age in the late 1980s. This is actually a well written memoir, but very much about drugs. You know, shooting heroin on the set of Alf and Moonlighting and everywhere. I am not generally horrified by drug use, but injecting heroin multip ...more

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Apr 29, 2016 Jennifer rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: biography-memoir, first-reads, thought-i-would-like-it-better

Received from FirstReads giveaway...
Every memoir of substance abuse seems to be described as stark and harrowing, and this is no exception. It's also no exception in that it was numbingly repetitive. If there had been a few more interesting anecdotes and a few less almost identical accounts of actual drug use, it would have held my interest better. I get it's a book about drug addiction, but it begins to feel more like the author is trying to relive that part of his life, one high at a time. Eit ...more

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May 09, 2016 Bob Schnell rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: life-stories, outsiders-freaks-and-charlatans, film-tv-and-radio, read-in-2016

I'm not sure why I'm continuously drawn to books by and about junkies but here's another one to add to the list. Jerry Stahl's memoir "Permanent Midnight" is a tragicomic tale of addiction. His story takes place in Hollywood in the 1980's and 90's. His career has gone from writing pornography for Hustler magazine to writing episodes of ALF, Moonlighting and thirtysomething. It seems that the more out-of-control his heroin habit becomes, the more he is in demand. Until it all crashes down around ...more

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Feb 27, 2015 Hudson rated it really liked it

Shelves: non-fiction-other

Another disturbing tale about drug abuse along the lines of Requiem for a Dream and Trainspotting. This was a fun read for such a dark subject, the author had a pretty good sense of humor and it comes through in his writing. Plus it was interesting to read about heroin addiction in someone who was a quasi celebrity and had tons of money.

Heroin, don't do it! ...more

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Dec 07, 2018 Emma rated it liked it

This book left me cold a number of times. I know exactly why. I know what the pain point is. I had a father with terminal alcoholism (that's what I call it now. Like terminal cancer. But not. Terminal addiction, instead). And the passages about loving his daughter was when my attitude to the book took a turn. Gasoline on embers. The persistent problem of an unwillingness to understand, or an inability to; empathizing instead with grimaces, set jaws, gritted teeth, the psychological brace positio This book left me cold a number of times. I know exactly why. I know what the pain point is. I had a father with terminal alcoholism (that's what I call it now. Like terminal cancer. But not. Terminal addiction, instead). And the passages about loving his daughter was when my attitude to the book took a turn. Gasoline on embers. The persistent problem of an unwillingness to understand, or an inability to; empathizing instead with grimaces, set jaws, gritted teeth, the psychological brace position of loved ones.

This next comment is going to sound shallow, but I was mulling this book over in a shopping centre. A monolithic shrine to the new fucking religion that exists in every major region. And it is now becoming common for me to have what I term an "existential crisis" in them, but could probably be more accurately referred to as heightened anxiety. Sometimes it blossoms into more, but not often. And I am standing there in a store going through fucking racks of discounted shit and jingle bell rock or similar is playing over the store audio and stampeding through my brain and there are people fucking everywhere and they are so fucking LOUD and everything is LOUD and why do people keep running into me and a quiet voice in my brain says "None of us were made for this. Where the fuck is the opt out button?" And I look around, look for a reassuring set of eyes, someone who will smile ruefully, who will give an indication that anyone else finds this WHOLE THING incredibly ridiculous. That I'm not insane. I catch sight of myself in a store mirror, my face looks pale and doughy. I slip my sunglasses over my eyes. A woman asks her boyfriend if she looks too old to wear the plastic bangles by the counter. The quiet voice in my brain is shrieking now, "Don't you get it? These are just shiny things to distract us from the fact that we are all fucking dying." My skin is prickly. I've contained it for maybe only five minutes, but maybe more. I walk out. I keep walking. I start to feel embarrassment at my own reaction, giggle nervously at myself. And the voice returns, "Maybe I should buy a bottle of wine. It's been a long week." And the inner stillness is there to meet me and it says, "If you felt like that - like you couldn't stand your skin - every second, could you become like Jerry?" Maybe this book helped me past my pain point. That's all I'm saying. ...more

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May 08, 2018 Elizabeth rated it it was amazing

Amazing, brilliant and I'm not one for flattery.

I have an incurable chronic illness that has taken me to hell (many times) and heaven (once...it was nice). Over the last few years, the only people I've found I can relate to in any way, in literature and life, so far, are: heroin addicts, those who have fought in wars and victims of the AIDS crisis.

My favourite writers by far are the ones who can write about the depths of human suffering with a self-awareness and as much sense of humour as you Amazing, brilliant and I'm not one for flattery.

I have an incurable chronic illness that has taken me to hell (many times) and heaven (once...it was nice). Over the last few years, the only people I've found I can relate to in any way, in literature and life, so far, are: heroin addicts, those who have fought in wars and victims of the AIDS crisis.

My favourite writers by far are the ones who can write about the depths of human suffering with a self-awareness and as much sense of humour as you can lend the situation without belittling pain or making it one-dimensional. To me, the ability of a writer to do this is the sign they have truly been there - when you've lost everything, not just once but over and over and over - everything life gives you from then on feels absurd and well...just too weird to get pure maudlin over. If you don't laugh, well, you...

I think a person has to go through some version of total Buddhist ego-death to be able to write like this. Many books I've read featuring passages of human pain and suffering ring so hollow and whiney. Sure, addiction itself is one of the most selfish things a person can spend their time on, and Stahl's writing is hardly far from narcissistic - but he's also not so attractive when he's telling us about shitting bile in his friend's broken-into garden, or remembering to buy an aerosol of Right Guard on the way to babysit his infant daughter to mask the smell of cooking up in the bathroom.
Once you been there, it doesn't take a lot to be honest - because let's face it, now you've faced your demons and them win, showing them to the rest of the world is a piece of pie. But it does take a lot to get there.
A LOT.

If you enjoyed this, I would wholeheartedly recommend User by Bruce Benderson - darker, yes, and fiction, yes, but there are some passages about drug use and AIDS that are so eloquent and cutting it's hard to imagine that Benderson hasn't been there in some form.
Cookie Mueller's (of John Waters' fame) essays and short stories are also brilliant examples of what I'm trying to get at - try the one about the birth of her son, Max, in Walking Through Clear Water in a Pool Painted Black.
Another book that shows the absurdity of suffering, for me, is The Living End by Stanley Elkin. At the time of reading, I did not know the novel was in part written about his own experience with MS but I couldn't read it without relating Elkin's tableau of Hell to my own personal hell.

I normally take my books to charity shop the second I've finished them, but I think this one will hang around a little longer. ...more

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Oct 13, 2016 Marti rated it really liked it

Shelves: biography-memoir, literary-authors, gonzo

This certainly has a deserving place in the canon of cautionary heroin literature (Junkie,Songs They Play On The Radio, Wonderland Avenue etc.). There are many cringe-worthy scenes that had me grimacing on the train. However, I think those are necessary because I cannot imagine anyone reading this and thinking: "Gee, heroin sounds fun!"

Beginning his writing career with artistic pretensions, Stahl finds himself making $5,000 a week writing dialogue for shows like Alf, Thirtysomething, Moonlightin This certainly has a deserving place in the canon of cautionary heroin literature (Junkie,Songs They Play On The Radio, Wonderland Avenue etc.). There are many cringe-worthy scenes that had me grimacing on the train. However, I think those are necessary because I cannot imagine anyone reading this and thinking: "Gee, heroin sounds fun!"

Beginning his writing career with artistic pretensions, Stahl finds himself making $5,000 a week writing dialogue for shows like Alf, Thirtysomething, Moonlighting and Booker (stuff he considered "schlock" and which came about via a marriage of convenience arranged by a British woman producer who wanted to become an American citizen). For a while he is able to pull off his dual life ie. morning meetup with a scary looking ex-con at 5:00 am in a seedy McDonalds for some dilaudids; then, off to a writers meeting in Century City.

And yes, it gets much worse before it gets better. But through it all, you can't help but laugh out loud. Stahl is a great writer with a gallows sense of humor to which most people born before 1990 will relate (he has a pretty funny desciption of a lunch party Cybil Shepard threw for the writers of Moonlighting to which he made the horrible mistake of wearing white socks with a lime green suit. A mistake because he injected himself in the foot during the party and spent the rest of it trying to hide the blood stain).

As might be expected, Stahl came from an unusually dysfunctional family. Though affluent, he was the only Jewish kid in a blue collar town outside of Pittsburgh. Then suddenly he was sent to the opposite extreme, a boarding school for the WASP elite (where he says he learned to do drugs). His father, a judge, ends up asphyxiating himself in the garage with the family car. 30 years later, the mother still insisted it was an accident.

All in all, I had a hard time putting this down, although toward the end, there were a few things I thought could have been shortened (a relationship with a girl he met at rehab in Phoenix and several more relapses). He reaches the end of his dope thanks to celestial intervention of the LA Riots (which he was too out-of-it to notice at first). And that's where the narrative ends with no denouement or any sort of afterword. ...more

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Sep 02, 2013 Jennie rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites

I hail Jerry as the next William Burroughs.

I wanted to place a few quotes here but found that I would pretty much be listing most of the novel!

Jerry's book Bad Sex on Speed led me to this memoir. He talked of being a junkie too well and was kind of relieved to find out he had been one. I held onto this book; dragged it out like the perfect night or last beer.

Jerry was a script writer for the famous 80s tv shows Moonlighting and Alf. He did drugs so he could cope with work; a first for me in a me ...more

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Feb 03, 2016 Kel rated it really liked it

It took me almost 200 pages to reach a point in which I wanted to finish this book, but once I did, I was all in. It took me almost 200 pages to become interested in the life of an self-deprecating, insecure, unlikable drug addict. But this addict, who addresses everything with a dose of dark humor and an overall air of “who gives a fuck”, eventually made me want to know where he ended up even if I didn’t really like him. Underneath it all, an intelligent, interesting man, who never really felt ...more

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Jul 17, 2008 Matt Evans rated it liked it

Stahl was a heroin addict. He also wrote TV scripts for "Moonlighting" and "Alf". When you come off heroin, so says Jerry, everything (and he means everything) hurts: showering, breathing, etc. Alf deserved better than Jerry gave him, but Jerry has since cleaned up and recently wrote a thinly-fictionalized version of Fatty Arbuckle's life that I've been meaning to read forever. ...more

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Jun 09, 2009 Zoe rated it it was amazing

one of the best junkie memoirs ever written, style, Stahl has so much damn style..

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Jun 06, 2019 M.liss rated it liked it

I didn’t love this book. It’s not the best-written thing I’ve ever read. Jerry Stahl says some kind of questionable shit about women and people of color. Surprise, he’s not, like, a super-great person. And I had a problem with the ending, leaving him standing there, bedraggled and triumphant, like some junkie Andy Dufresne.
But! I did kind of love this book. I find these memoirs of addiction so compelling. I’m captivated when someone looks back on the self-made hell they survived. I admit it – pa ...more

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Aug 25, 2017 Beth York rated it liked it · review of another edition

honest, gritty and an authentic window into the exhausting dance between addiction, sobriety and the acts endured to experience the supreme, rock bottom and the beautiful.. in both worlds.

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Mar 02, 2018 Jeremy rated it liked it

Surprised I didn't like it more, since I LOVE addict memoirs and this is supposedly King Shit of that genre. The jive talk was weird and it's overlong. Great shooting up stories, though! ...more

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Feb 19, 2013 Benedict Reid rated it it was ok

Passages of this book were amazing. Funny, Sad, brainless and thoughtful, all at the same time.
But...
This book didn't go anywhere. I really had no idea where Jerry had got to by the end of it. I suspected that he hadn't really got anywhere. It felt like it was written as a step on his journey towards recovery. But we weren't told that.
Instead we get description of trip after trip. Often lovingly described. It reminded me of William S. Burroughs book Junk, in that it was full of self-delusion dr ...more

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Nov 12, 2019 Joe rated it really liked it

It's A Million Little Pieces, but true.

Two things prevented it from being five stars for me.

1) His narrative voice wears a little thin for me. There's a little too much humor in his continued descent into junkie-dom. There are several opportunities to get clean that Stahl misses, and I thought he was a little too glib about them.

There is also his continuous antipathy for the entertainment industry that pays for his drug habit. He mentions that his television writing work is so mind-numbing that ...more

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Nov 29, 2010 Jason McGathey rated it it was amazing

This book is like 450 pages and I literally read it in one day without putting the book down once. Fascinating, brutally honest stuff: Stahl was both a screenwriter for "Alf" and "Moonlighting," and a raging heroin addict. There is no cheesy redemption at the end - as the title would imply his nightmare just goes on and on. The fact that he is together enough to pen this book by the late 90s is hopeful, but inconclusive. ...more

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Jul 29, 2014 Kailin rated it liked it

This guy used the word "slime" as a verb one too many times for my liking. Although the story was engaging, there was too much lingo/slang in the way. I think it would have been better without all the jive, man. ...more

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Mar 14, 2011 Daniel Parks rated it it was amazing

You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll shit your pants. If you're a writer you'll wish you had his talent, his humor, and his guts. ...more

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Aug 31, 2011 Margot Note added it

Said "Dang!" when I finished the book. ...more

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Jul 30, 2018 Stefani rated it really liked it

Shelves: memoir, grotesque, funny

Permanent Midnight is brutally honest, darkly funny, and frequently graphic memoir of the author's 20+ year drug addiction. Luckily, what I feared would be a wretched trajectory of downward momentum ended up being surprisingly upbeat and entertaining and quite funny to boot.

I particularly applaud Stahl's willingness to lay it all on the line, sparing no detail of his debased journey into the bowels of drug addiction from which he (eventually) emerges. In fact, he dares the reader to judge him—i Permanent Midnight is brutally honest, darkly funny, and frequently graphic memoir of the author's 20+ year drug addiction. Luckily, what I feared would be a wretched trajectory of downward momentum ended up being surprisingly upbeat and entertaining and quite funny to boot.

I particularly applaud Stahl's willingness to lay it all on the line, sparing no detail of his debased journey into the bowels of drug addiction from which he (eventually) emerges. In fact, he dares the reader to judge him—impossible to do as Stahl remains his own harshest critic—as he recounts what for many people would be an unthinkable act: dragging his infant daughter into a shooting gallery to score his next fix. His judgment is so heinous, even by the standards of a trap house, he is chided by a fellow addict who claims even she, who is barely able to hold her head up, even she wouldn't stoop so low to as to bring a baby there! He also routinely repays his friend's generosity by rifling through their medicine cabinets in search of pills; spurts blood and other bodily fluids anywhere it's convenient, and thinks nothing of pilfering cough syrup or any other medicine sitting out not being used (gasp)!

There were many “what the fuck” moments throughout the book, particularly when it's obvious that Stahl is intent on screwing up whatever good things are coming his way by exercising poor judgment and/or being blatantly high. Case in point: Stahl injects a speedball to calm his nerves moments before a big meeting with several producers. He emerges from the bathroom, sweat-soaked and jittery, twitching up a storm. He mutters an excuse about coming from the gym and...they literally do nothing. His excuses get more and more convoluted as addiction takes hold.

I'd used the flu for our first few meetings, switched to diarrhea to explain delaying meetings with my half-hour bathroom sessions, and was now reduced to malaria flare-ups and incipient leprosy.

Eventually, Stahl decides to call it quits on his addiction (one of many attempts) and hightails it to Phoenix to attend rehab. Even more humbling—but good fodder for the memoir he's about to write—he's forced by the program to get a job at McDonald's, a situation so absurd after his previous career heights, that I couldn't help but laugh.

Who'd have thunk, back when yours truly was stepping over the flooded toilet, fighting off the stench of grease and feces, holding his breath while he shot Dilaudid in the Venice and Western branch of this very institution, back in the wilds of Los Angeles, that I'd end up part of Team McDonald's.

It is a testament both to Stahl's strength of character and talent as a writer, that this book never wallowed in the depths of self-pity but soared to the heights of hilarity. Who'd have thunk? ...more

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Mar 30, 2019 Aida Fonollera rated it liked it

Shelves: read-2019

Page 363 - “.. Heroin may kill you, but it’ll never break your heart. Not like a child.. Not like loving a child”

This book is a drug addicts’ memoirs: his up and down, in and out of the habit, hence, its title, permanent midnight. It is one those books that repulsed me, where the scenes of addiction were disgustingly described. For how else could it be described? Except in its most debasing inhuman characteristics. It is that abasement, despite of it, I told myself I have to read it.
On my rea ...more

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Sep 16, 2020 Brian rated it really liked it · review of another edition

In the mid to late 90's I went through a heroin phase. Not that I ever got close to the stuff, just that I got real interested in movies and books and media about it. I watched Trainspotting 100's of times. I read many of Irvine Welsh's novels. I loved Lou Reed. I was into it. Nowadays, I would probably be flagged in some system as a potential user and put on a path or pre-rehab. But, these were the 90's, anything went then.

I watched the movie Permanent Midnight when it came out, I don't remembe ...more

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Dec 30, 2015 Kirk rated it really liked it

Jerry Stahl is as unlikable as he is compelling. Early in the book, he describes his unique dating methodology of picking up a compulsive German performance artist, renting a hotel room with her, and taking black tar heroin like a dog would take its temperature…all of which leads to frenzied, narcotics-induced sex. Interestingly, somewhere between the hotel room and the final scene, the one where Stahl is cleaning himself of his own vomit with a stranger’s garden hose after kicking his habit col Jerry Stahl is as unlikable as he is compelling. Early in the book, he describes his unique dating methodology of picking up a compulsive German performance artist, renting a hotel room with her, and taking black tar heroin like a dog would take its temperature…all of which leads to frenzied, narcotics-induced sex. Interestingly, somewhere between the hotel room and the final scene, the one where Stahl is cleaning himself of his own vomit with a stranger’s garden hose after kicking his habit cold-turkey, Stahl wins your affections. It’s no morality play, but Permanent Midnight is no flippant carnival ride with the living dead either. If you read carefully, Stahl’s memoir is grounded by a serious ethical subtext about suffering, adulthood, and self-possession. It’s less about addiction and more about the addict, or at least the rare addict capable of admitting that, “I never stopped to consider the morality, personal or otherwise, of what I was up to” (39).

I didn’t think I would care for Permanent Midnight, considering I’m not a fan of the guttersnipe cultural criticism found in Howl, Naked Lunch, and elsewhere. Maybe it’s because I’ve never lived in a big city, or maybe it’s because I can barely suffer through a sulfide hangover (let alone the corporeal onslaught of harder drugs), but I can’t psychically hang with the angelheaded hipsters or understand their Weltanschauung. Stahl undoubtedly descends from these writers, evidenced when he writes sentences like, “there are stories you don’t want to tell, and there are stories that scald your brainpan right down to the tongue at the mere thought of uttering. But you can’t NOT. Even if you wait until your skull is nothing but a charred and smoking husk, the truth will still be in there, squirming.” It’s all there in Permanent Midnight: the macabre, the drugs, the physical and psychic deformities, the angst. But that’s not all there is, which is why it’s worth the read.

Two themes and Stahl’s witty writing propel the reader through the book. The most important theme is Stahl’s emotion irreconcilability with his deceased father. He writes:

“I hadn’t intended to explore the link between my father’s exhaust-pipe passing and my own, more lugubrious stretch of suicide. But I see now, before I can get to the fruits of my toxic hobby, I’ve got to get down to the roots. This kind of self-exploration stands out as wholly antithetical to the life, or, more accurately, the life of the mind on drugs.”

This isn’t your run-of-the-mill postmodern navel-gazing. It’s honesty intelligently delivered. In one passage, Stahl addresses the schism between his intent and his behavior, his emotional distance travelled and the distance to come, and, most importantly, the impact of his father’s actions on his own life. Stahl suffers greatly because of his relationship with his parents, his deceased father and his depressive mother (another character for whom suicide is a variable in the calculus of life). He incorporates the parental theme early in the opening section of the book, empathizing with his mom, “now I don’t begrudge my mother her torment. It’s the one thing we have in common” (32), and addressing his father’s absence in the following manner:

“Our house, after his death, became a museum of Dad-dom. His gavel, the flag they wrapped his coffin in, folded up neat and triangular in the army style, pictures of him at various milestones of his career. City solicitor, attorney general, federal judge.” (32)

It doesn’t take Lacanian witchcraft to understand that a man of Jerry’s father’s stature casts a long shadow. Because of his father’s relevant public service positions, Stahl is constantly dismissive of his own career as a pulp writer in the Los Angeles magazine and television industry. He writes of the contempt he has for the ‘lubricious pap’ he grinds out (54). He adds later, “I just didn’t give a fuck…How could I? My father cared. He struggled. He believed in something. He had goals…and what did it do for him?” (66). The thematic richness of Stahl’s commentary on his father supersedes the shock value that comes with the wild choices Stahl makes in the throws of addiction. It invests the reader in Jerry Stahl and his message, which is important early on, considering he’s already wearing a diaper in the opening paragraph.

The other theme found in Permanent Midnight is redemption. The book has a very straightforward plot: Jerry Stahl is addicted to heroin, and it gets worse before it gets better. The reason why it gets better is incredibly compelling, and Stahl is the first person to acknowledge that it was not because of some Herculean effort on his part. He says:

“You see, I already knew I’d never stop on my own. It would take an Act of Nature. An Act of God. Some Dope-us Ex Machina to blast out of Nowhere and pluck my ass from this dope-laden quotidian into some new way of life. Which, thank you Darryl Gates, turned out to be just what happened.”

Jerry Stahl kicks his habit in the middle of the 1992 Los Angeles riots. The story’s conclusion doesn’t take long to transpire, but what it lacks in length it makes up for in beauty. Stahl, removed from society in the liminal space of some stranger’s garage, burns with the city. He describes the cramps and nausea and guilt, but, more importantly, he thinks:

“Maybe that’s all this was…All everything that led up to this moment in the dirt ever was, preparing for a meeting with the dead. Preparing to see my father. My father, who I have not let myself miss. Who I have never mourned. Who is, even now, I think, watching my every move, shaking his head, furrowing his brow at the sad dynamic that drives his boy to just get worse…” (383).

At any given time, Permanent Midnight is unpleasant, immoral, and graphic. But it does something that, in my opinion, other depictions of a similar lifestyle fail to do. The ending of the story rewards the reader like it rewarded Stahl, the mud-caked man who finds a hose to clean himself off. We can fail to pick up the mirror, we can succumb to the temptations of cleverness or unconsciousness, or we can wait it out, all the while trying to figure out who “we” are. ...more

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Apr 24, 2018 Mike Andrelczyk rated it it was amazing

A writer moves from porno articles, pills and pot to Hollywood TV scripts and heroin. Stahl’s account of the vicious cycles of heroin and crack addiction is simultaneously pitiful and hilarious. Hating himself for selling out to Hollywood and for selling his soul to drugs, Stahl spirals downward, struggling to string together sober time but always returning to heroin. Also part Hollywood-memoir. I remember watching ALF as a kid - had no idea it was written by speedball-fueled lunatic. Stahl also ...more

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Dec 18, 2017 Ian Carpenter rated it liked it

Work Reading: He's a damn good writer. The ugliness throughout has burned out its appeal for me over tons of addict books over my life. I don't know how you tell this in a new way or if you can since the life is such a pattern. The twist here is often his great success as a TV writer. Extra hilarious if you're in the business and watching him loathe or fuck up his way through Moonlighting or Thirtysomething or Twin Peaks. It's super honest in the most repugnant ways. And his detailing of the fuc ...more

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Apr 28, 2019 Jerriemy Chilson rated it it was amazing

Its the kind of book that you'll either love or hate. Few people will land in between. Written in a style similar to the great Gonzo, this memoir tells all and more. I found the sick twisted toilet humor hilarious but also found myself feeling sympathy for his utter despair. I would recommend it to those who enjoy reading about the dark dirty places in this world. ...more

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About Jerry Stahl

Jerry Stahl

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Jerry Stahl (born September 28, 1953) is an American novelist and screenwriter, He is best known for the darkly comedic tale of addiction, Permanent Midnight, which was revered by critics and an ever-growing cult of devoted readers, as one of the most compelling, contemporary memoirs. A film adaptation soon followed with Ben Stiller in the lead role, which is widely considered to be Mr. Stiller’s ...more