First published 2013
D. B. C. Pierre opens his world of appetite and abandon through characters who chase sensation in all its forms. A man pursues the perfect meal while his life crumbles around him. Another drowns in drink, seeking transcendence in the bottom of bottles. Bodies collide in desperate searches for connection through sex and substances. Each story pulls readers into moments where ordinary people reach for something beyond themselves, whether through food, alcohol, drugs, or wild combinations of all three. The characters stumble toward revelation, then face the brutal clarity that follows every high. Pierre draws from his own pursuit of extreme experience, weaving memoir into fiction until the boundaries blur. Dozens of illustrations and photographs accompany these tales, offering visual evidence of lives lived at the edge. The collection moves through worlds where excess becomes a form of prayer and hangovers arrive like judgment. These are stories about the human hunger for more, told by a writer who understands both the ecstasy and the cost.
Genres: fiction, addiction, contemporary, 21st-century
Vibes: dark, emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: unreliable-narrator
Kindle Edition · Faber & Faber
Content warnings: addiction, drug-use, substance-abuse