sections:
The story of Ed, a "stupid stinking drug addict and alcoholic," and his adventures on the streets of New York City. In Crack City, U.S.A., when addicts fire up the white rock in the glass pipe that will transport them out of their misery, the prayer they intone with reverence is "Beam me up, Scotty."
After several years of deep addiction, Ed T---- stumbles out of detox and heads home to his family. All he finds is an empty apartment. Sobriety is a lonely business. So he turns to Hard Drugs anonymous, the twelve-step program designed to help sick and suffering addicts along the path to salvation. In a smoky church basement in Manhattan’s East Village, Ed meets his new "family": Rachel, an actress and part-time dominatrix; Frank, an ex-cop who still bleeds NYPD blue; Myron, a reforming unleaded gas-guzzler saving up for a sex change. They aren’t alone. Screwups and misfits of every race, color and creed gleefully exchange self-help slogans and bubble with hope and encouragement.
Beam Me Up, Scotty is Ed’s day-to-day--at times hour-to-hour--story of redemption and revenge, and he’s holding nothing back. He takes the messages of Hard Drugs Anonymous to heart--then he takes them to the street. From Step one through Step Twelve, Ed works his Program and fights to stay clean while Scotty beams temptation on every street corner. But Ed is on a different kind of mission now: he’s dealing salvation in lethal doses.
Michael Guinzburg’s novel is as high voltage as a live wire and as impossible to let go; it seizes readers from Step One and holds them for the full count. As a novel, it is taut, gripping, and fast-paced. As dark comedy, it is scathing, chilling, and unremitting. As a moral tale, it will both disturb and edify. Beam Me Up, Scotty invites comparisons to the finest works by Jim Thompson, Hubert Selby, Jr., and William Burroughs, and establishes Guinzburg as a brilliant new voice in dark comic fiction.
book reviews
- Terry Southern
"Great book. The hardest, purest American prose since Faulkner's Sanctuary." - Peter Matthiessen
“Michael Guinzburg is a sharp-eared, sharp-eyed and very funny satirist whose Beam Me Up , Scotty has an eloquent ‘tough love’ message for those – perhaps especially for those – who may be outraged by it.” - New York Newsday
“Welcome to the writing of the future.” - Independent On Sunday
"Urban noir for the morally disposessed." - Philadelphia Inquirer
“A great tragicomic voice.” - George Plimpton
"A fictionalized account of a violent and terrifying drop -- not a descent -- into a hell far more appalling than anything imagined by William Burroughs, Jean Genet, Hubert Selby Jr, or other probers of the lower depths. A remarkably and powerful document." - The Scotsman
"The satirical pathos of William Burroughs and the meat-and-two-veg pathos of Henry Miller -- bleakly funny. A rip-roaring tale." - People
“Addicts, AIDS and the real threat of violence makes this book terrifyingly accurate.” - Albuquerque Journal
“A dark and twisted satire, full of random violence and wicked, wicked humor. Harsh, unblinking.” - Dimanche
“Michael Guinzburg’s first novel comes like a bolt of thunder...A fitting companion to the work of Chester Himes.” - The New York Times
“I was nauseated by the carnage.” - Penthouse
“A hilarious, black-humor novel. Furious with shock-troop writing and lampoon energy.” - John Rechy
“Guinzburg’s is as forceful a new literary voice as any in recent memory, authoritative, uninhibited, as violent as it is moving. This is an exciting debut.” - American Book Reviews
“Harrowing and delightful, a combination all too uncommon. Guinzburg scoffs at the notion of the perfection of the human animal. He examines us and finds that we are more like Ahabs and Kurtzes than like caring, nurturing, wounded inner children. Delightful.” - The Daily Telegraph
"Truly original. The America it depicts is unremittingly violent, obscene and anarchic." - The Observer
"Riveting to the last page. Violent, funny and furious." - The Face
"Guaranteed to mindwarp British readers." - Arena
"Book Of The Month." - Time Out
"Guinzburg writes like Raymond Chandler on a trip."
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