Dermaphoria

Dermaphoria
Craig Clevenger

Clandestine chemistry and the LA underworld provide the atmosphere for this kaleidoscopic tale of lost memories and the heartbreak of finding them, from the author of ‘The Contortionist’s Handbook’.When Eric Ashworth wakes in jail, he has no idea how he got there, or why. His only memory is a woman's name: Desiree.Released on bail and holed up in a low-rent motel, Eric starts to piece together his former life as a chemist at the centre of a desert drug ring with the help of a powerful new hallucinogen which simultaneously loosens his grip on the present. As the events of his past begin to emerge from the confusion of his fragmented memory, Eric must contend with a gnawing paranoia and the need for ever-increasing fixes – not to mention disturbing visits from an intimidating police detective, his former associate Manhattan White and the ominously named Toe Tag. As his grip on reality becomes more tenuous, past and present, reality and fantasy begin to bleed into each other, bringing this visceral, shifting novel of love and loss to its climax.

Praise (#ulink_fcef70d7-0495-54b0-b946-c23e0042d48b)

From the reviews of Dermaphoria:

‘An experimental adventure … What makes this worth reading is Craig Clevenger’s extraordinary prose: the pleasure of text is everything’

Guardian

‘It’s dizzying stuff, and the seedy LA underworld is potent in its heat and squalor; no wonder Chuck Palahniuk is singing his praises’

Metro

‘What makes the book so unique, so compulsively readable, is Clevenger’s ability to make complex images seem so unforced’

Independent on Sunday

‘Playful, intellectual, carefully formed and stunningly executed’

Sunday Business Post

‘Part noir detective thriller, part crystal meth fuelled freak-out through bug-infested motel rooms, Nevada diners and low-rent strip joints’

Dazed and Confused

Dedication (#ulink_def67dba-2cdb-5269-be46-bca773aac953)

To JILL NANI

Epigraph (#ulink_b940ddf8-5aaf-5524-881e-4cb70d113df4)

We, amnesiacs all, condemned to live in an eternally

fleeting present, have created the most elaborate of human

constructions, memory, to buffer ourselves against the

intolerable knowledge of the irreversible passage of time

and irretrievability of its moments and events.

—GEOFFREY SONNABEND

Obliscence: Theories of Forgetting and the Problem of Matter

From the first day I saw her I knew that she was the one

As she stared in my eyes and smiled

For her lips were the colour of the roses

That grew down the river, all bloody and wild

—NICK CAVE

“Where the Wild Roses Grow,” Murder Ballads

Contents

Cover (#u60809b8a-c781-5986-964e-ca09f673605c)

Title Page (#u4eac5bc3-53cc-5bb3-8399-075c061458d5)

Praise (#ulink_3fd24138-9702-5237-acd7-23cb0636ee1d)

Dedication (#ulink_8fa5197a-8e41-54a8-9a68-43b732decc56)

Epigraph (#ulink_3b105d76-dae3-56a6-9362-41443d197d3b)

Chapter One (#ulink_d95a44f6-0834-5db7-a559-6bf1a5966f54)

Chapter Two (#ulink_60a55176-60ed-5233-a700-905ddbe0204e)

Chapter Three (#ulink_f20e05be-1679-5f12-962d-0bb458c7d9a6)

Chapter Four (#ulink_0fc4526c-485d-5ffa-a900-b19007d2b7cf)

Chapter Five (#ulink_22393035-c360-5f5e-a7e8-a56ffc1f458a)

Chapter Six (#ulink_3bffccdf-54b7-5ced-8b3a-84e93d2893ba)

Chapter Seven (#ulink_2687579b-ab43-5b7e-a795-de1537a1ce62)

Chapter Eight (#ulink_4d2df132-fae4-58b4-8984-a694bc7d74a8)

Chapter Nine (#ulink_b1ae20c0-c160-536b-902a-09416be16c32)

Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)