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    Pain Killers: A Novel
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    Pain Killers: A Novel
    Unavailable
    Pain Killers: A Novel
    Ebook502 pages9 hours

    Pain Killers: A Novel

    By Jerry Stahl

    3/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    “Often brilliant, always compelling.” — Pittsburgh Tribune

    From acclaimed and controversial author Jerry Stahl comes one of the most vividly subversive, savagely funny, explosive novels yet unleashed in our tender century. Pain Killers is a violent and mind-wrenching masterpiece in the Gonzo Noir style that has earned Jerry Stahl his legion of avid fans. For those who enjoy the works of Chuck Palahniuk, Terry Southern, and Hunter S Thompson—as well as Stahl’s own Permanent Midnight, I Fatty, Perv–A Love Story, and Plainclothes Naked—Pain Killers is sure to please.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateMay 5, 2009
    ISBN9780061940170
    Unavailable
    Pain Killers: A Novel
    Author

    Jerry Stahl

    Jerry Stahl is the author of six books, including the memoir Permanent Midnight (made into a movie with Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson) and the novels I, Fatty and Pain Killers. Formerly the culture columnist for Details, Stahl's fiction and journalism have appeared in Esquire, the New York Times, and the Believer, among other places. He has worked extensively in film and television and, most recently, wrote Hemingway & Gellhorn, starring Clive Owen and Nicole Kidman, for HBO.

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    Reviews for Pain Killers

    3/5

    43 ratings11 reviews

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    • 5/5
      I have a nasty habit of discovering excellent series in the middle. Very seldom am I lucky enough to read a novel with characters and situations that I thoroughly enjoy, and then later discover that they have been carried over into new novels. Instead, what often happens is that I find out a book I liked is from the middle (or sometimes end) of an excellent series, and I am forced to backtrack and collect the previous books.Needless to say, I was not lucky enough to catch Manny Rupert, Jerry Stahl's flighty ex-cop drug addict turned private detective, in his first book, Plainclothes Naked. However, Pain Killers is only the second novel in a what will hopefully be a longer series.Stahl's writing has always had an edge to it. Not surprising, considering that his real life exploits (as recounted in Permanent Midnight: A Memoir) have been a tad edgy themselves. But it isn't the edge that makes Stahl's writing so good. It is the way he manages to combine it with a dark humor that doesn't flinch at the ugliness unfolding around it. A drug addict ex-policeman posing as prison rehab counselor in order to investigate a possible ex-Nazi in hiding shouldn't be funny. But then Stahl throws lines at you like "If I were a pedophile, I'd paint kittens." He knows what shouldn't be funny, and he knows how to make you laugh at it.Manny Rupert isn't the kind of hero you root for because he's one of the good guys. He's the guy you root for because, as depraved as he is, he's nowhere near as bad as the people he is surrounded by. Besides, at least he can see the humor of it all, as bitter as it may be. If you're like me, and prefer your leading man to be less than perfect, you'll definitely want to pick up a copy of Pain Killers.
    • 3/5
      Manny Rupert is a former cop. He's kind of a former junky. He's almost formerly married to Tina, a woman he met after answering a domestic call during which he discovered that she'd murdered her then husband by putting ground glass and Drano in his Lucky Charms. (He didn't put that in his official report, but he did marry her, and now she's divorcing him.)As Pain Killers opens, Manny, who is now nominally working as a private investigator, discovers he's been the victim of a home invasion. He's knocked out while still trying to process the bizarre scene that's been left, and when he comes to he finds the home invader is still there. Harry Zell has come to hire Manny to go undercover in San Quentin to discover whether the inmate who's claiming to be Josef Mengele--uh huh, the Angel of Death, scourge of Auschwitz, reported dead in 1979 in Paraguay--really is who he says he is.What else can he do? Manny has no other jobs, and no prospects. He's been ignoring notices of impending foreclosure for months and the love of his life--the admittedly borderline personality Tina--is divorcing him because he's the reason she's been making herself throw up (although she's been bulemic since she was nine). Manny heads up to San Quentin and then the antic fun really begins. You could call Jerry Stahl, at least in this book, the poor man's Chuck Pahlaniuk. From the mold- and fungus-ridden trailer he's given as his digs at the prison (he's undercover as--ha ha--a drug counselor)--to the graphically surreal scenes of carnage at an L.A. dog pound where Mengele's recently worked to the experimental surgery that Manny wakes up to find being performed on him at one point, there are plenty of things that might make a grown man vomit. Although Stahl's not nearly the writer that Pahlaniuk is, he is certainly laugh-out-loud funny...sometimes uncomfortably so, but hell, I'll take my laughs where I can get them.Jerry Stahl's early career involved TV writing and heroin addiction. He came to main stream attention with his 1995 memoir, Permanent Midnight, which, while it might not have been the first of the confessional memoirs to take the reader tweaking and puking along for the ride was among the first (and for sure among the best and funniest). His sitcom background trained him well, and shows especially in the snappy back and forth of his dialog. Pain Killers is not a great book, but it is a good and a funny one. It's not for the weak of stomach or the faint of heart, and if you don't like a good Nazi or Jewish joke then you probably want to steer clear. But if you like gross out humor, far-fetched premises, and truly hilarious resolutions, pick it up. The book could have used a bit of judicious editing through the middle third, but still moves along at a fairly brisk clip.
    • 5/5
      I have a nasty habit of discovering excellent series in the middle. Very seldom am I lucky enough to read a novel with characters and situations that I thoroughly enjoy, and then later discover that they have been carried over into new novels. Instead, what often happens is that I find out a book I liked is from the middle (or sometimes end) of an excellent series, and I am forced to backtrack and collect the previous books.Needless to say, I was not lucky enough to catch Manny Rupert, Jerry Stahl's flighty ex-cop drug addict turned private detective, in his first book, Plainclothes Naked. However, Pain Killers is only the second novel in a what will hopefully be a longer series.Stahl's writing has always had an edge to it. Not surprising, considering that his real life exploits (as recounted in Permanent Midnight: A Memoir) have been a tad edgy themselves. But it isn't the edge that makes Stahl's writing so good. It is the way he manages to combine it with a dark humor that doesn't flinch at the ugliness unfolding around it. A drug addict ex-policeman posing as prison rehab counselor in order to investigate a possible ex-Nazi in hiding shouldn't be funny. But then Stahl throws lines at you like "If I were a pedophile, I'd paint kittens." He knows what shouldn't be funny, and he knows how to make you laugh at it.Manny Rupert isn't the kind of hero you root for because he's one of the good guys. He's the guy you root for because, as depraved as he is, he's nowhere near as bad as the people he is surrounded by. Besides, at least he can see the humor of it all, as bitter as it may be. If you're like me, and prefer your leading man to be less than perfect, you'll definitely want to pick up a copy of Pain Killers.
    • 2/5
      Let me begin by saying this is a weird book. I generally enjoy wired book because books are supposed to take you into an alternate reality right?This book however makes Kafka look tame by comparison. The premise is that A man in hired to go undercover to see if a prison guard is really a Nazi Camp guard in hiding. It delves into the world of drug addicts and prostitution and other underbelly activities. It takes twist and turns that no reader could have anticipated. It has dark undertones throughout the book. It also has a good psychological bent as it explores the dark side of human nature. It was entertaining to be able to see that whole spectrum without actually being in any harm. He also injects humor into his subject so you don't feel as if he is dragging you down. Some books after you have read them leave you feeling more depressed than you were before reading them. Not so with Pain Killers.When I arrived at the end of the book I was like what?! huh? That is a good thing in my opinion. Not many books have that ability. A book that takes you on a ride has accomplished its purpose.
    • 2/5
      This book should have been a book I loved. It reminded of writers that I really enjoy like Charlie Huston, James Ellroy, Andrew Vachss, Joe R. Lansdale, and more. It has that blend of fast-paced humor and violence that I dig.But towards the end of the book, there were scenes that just dragged on and on. They were presented under the guise of dialog, but it was mostly one character droning on and on about things. It was as if Stahl had a bunch of stuff he had thought up (or perhaps researched) that he felt the reader needed to know, but it didn't really add to the story.The most distressing thing about this was that Stahl had spent the whole novel up to that point painting the villains and pseudo-bad guys as very smart and clever, and these scenes just felt dumb. Once I got to this point, then the general absurdity of the novel (which I had been enjoying) started to bug me, too.It got me worried about how he was going to wrap the book up. The ending was actually very rewarding, and worked a lot better than I thought it might. I'd certainly check out other book by Stahl, but if too many of them are like this I might have to pass on them in the future.
    • 2/5
      This was an okay read. The characters are fantastic, and I think that's the only reason I was able to get through it. I love the main character and the language of the book, but the plot seemed strange to me. There were a lot of jumps and twists that I didn't understand and much of which I feel like wasn't explained very well. I'm not sure what exactly happened in the novel, but it was amusing and fun nonetheless.
    • 2/5
      The beginning of this book had me thinking that I would enjoy it very much. As it went on however, it lost steam for me. I tried reading something else and then going back to it a few times, but I could never really get into it enough to finish it.
    • 2/5
      This was an interesting read - but it was hard to follow in parts. The story had many jumps in it that had me re-reading the previous chapter to see if I fell asleep or why did I miss that the character had left one scene and arrived at another in a totally different situation. I don't mind books jumping from character to character or situation to situation, but in this one the jumps were incoherent and chaotic. Not really my style I guess.
    • 3/5
      I want to like Pain Killers, I really do. Jerry Stahl's style is dark, sharp, caustic and amusing and in Pain Killers he flashes some moments of brilliance. Unfortunately those high moments are eclipsed by a near fetish obsession with the politics of the Holocaust and most specifically Josef Mengele. With a solid set up, extraordinarily strong main character and pitch perfect first act Pain Killers seems like it could be an absolute break out book. The book takes an extreme left turn about mid way through that completely derails the initial momentum and narrative. Stahl seemed to have a choice, either follow the arch of Manny Rupert or go for Mengele. He chose the latter and the final act of the book is so absurd and ridiculous that it decimates everything before it.Stahl's writing peaks early on with descriptions that leap off the page, but as the book goes on he loses touch with the world he's created in order to revisit the theme of the politics of the Holocaust and how maybe human experiments aren't such a 'bad' thing. To most this theme will be distasteful enough to completely skip this book, I found it pretty hard to stomach. The real audience for this book are Stahl fans, perhaps people who've already read Plainclothes Naked, otherwise readers looking for something edgy would do much better with Chuck Palahniuk or Bret Easton Ellis.
    • 4/5
      Jerry Stahl's "Pain Killers" is dark, funny, disturbing, nauseating, and entertaining. The main character, Manny Rubert, is a stereotypical ex-undercover cop recovering junkie, but somehow that works. Manny and the other characters are well defined and interesting, if not particularly likable. The modern-day plot is coherent, compelling, and possibly even plausible. The story delves deeply into morality, but cleverly and without lectures, holding a mirror up for the reader to examine his own soul and potential behavior. The story also shines a light on history and the modern perceptions of history, reminding us that history books are written by the victors and to truly understand history, it is necessary to understand the context of events and delve deeply enough into historical events to truly understand what happened. Yes, the losers may have been evil, but that does not mean the victors were innocent angels.
    • 4/5
      A 90 year old man surfaces in a Prison in California claiming to be Dr. Josef Mengele, the infamous Nazi Doctor. Manny Rupert, former cop and drug addict, is hired to verify if the German is the real deal or an impostor. But when Manny sees his ex-wife meeting the head of the Aryan brotherhood things start to slip his grip and slowly he starts to wonder what the real motivations of the guy who hired him to ID Mengele were...A surreal ride featuring intriguing discussions about morals in science, high speed chases and innumerable strange encounters.