“Nineteen rattling tales of true crime as compelling as any fiction.”
–Blender
“Whew, can Sager report and write… masterful.”
–The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“You know those engrossing books that keep you up all night? Don’t pick this one up if you have somewhere to be the next morning.”
–E Online.com
“Some of the finest magazine writing you’ll ever see. Students of magazine journalism will read and re-read these pieces… Equally fearless and tenacious, Sager goes back to the gutter again and again to wrest art from the muck. His readers are lucky.”
—Austin American-Statesman
“Extraordinary original journalism… one of the best true crime writers we have. This is superb, gripping work.”
—The Buffalo News
“Mike Sager writes about places and events we seldom get a look at — and people from whom we avert our eyes. But with Sager in command of all the telling details, he shows us history, humanity, humor, sometimes even honor. He makes us glad to live with our eyes wide open.”
— Richard Ben Cramer, Pulitzer Prize winning author of What It Takes: The Way to the White House and Joe Dimaggio: The Hero’s Life
“There are no magazine writers like Mike Sager. His writing is a knife’s edge. His stories are real. They take you to places you didn’t necessarily want to go. But after you’ve been there, damn, you can’t wait to head to the next Sager destination.”
— David Granger, Editor-in-Chief, Esquire
“The stories are incredibly lurid, their subjects astonishingly alluring.”
—The New York Sun
“Bracing, solid magazine writing… These grimy tales make for instant page-turners.”
—Austin Chronicle
“This strong collection of Sager’s articles over the past 20 years for Rolling Stone and GQ demonstrates his skill as a reporter… But two articles are especially compelling. One is an intimate portrait of (Pulitzer fabulist) Janet Cooke… the other is a lengthy, detailed look at the life and death of author Carlos Castaneda.”
— Publishers Weekly
“Delightfully seamy glimpses of the underside of pop culture… Pretty it ain’t, but throbbingly real it is– dynamic episodic reading, too.”
–-Booklist
“Readers will enjoy a romp through 15 years of popular culture.”
—Library Journal
“Mike Sager is the beat poet of American journalism, that rare reporter who can make literature out of shabby reality. Equal parts reporter, ethnographer, stylist and cultural critic, Sager has for 20 years carried the tradition of Tom Wolfe on his broad shoulders, chronicling the American scene and psyche. Nobody does it sharper, smarter, or with more style. What a career– and this is just a slice of it.”
— Walt Harrington, award-winning author of The Everlasting Stream and chairman, Department of Journalism, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
“To say Mike Sager is a gripping storyteller, which he most assuredly is, does not fully explain what separates him from the pack. Sager’s particular brilliance lies in finding the quotidian within the extreme, the tender amid the grotesque. To these portraits of porn stars, drug dealers, disgraced celebrities, murderers and their victims he brings a sophisticated understanding of human character and a reservoir of deep but never exculpatory compassion. Read on and be awed.”
— Samuel G. Freedman, Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist, associate dean of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism
“Mike Sager was a great Rolling Stone reporter; “The Devil and John Holmes” is one of the most terrific sagas we have ever published.”
— Jann Wenner, editor and publisher, Rolling Stone
“Each piece is captivating, that sort of anthropological expedition into an event, a person, a story, that you will soon recognize as uniquely Sageresque. Mike’s work is already being taught in journalism schools and for good reason.”
— Henry Schuster, author, Hunting Eric Rudolf, producer 60 Minutes.
“I can recognize the truth in these stories– demoralizing tales about the darkest possible side of wretched humanity. Sager has obviously spent too much time in flop houses in Laurel Canyon.”
— Hunter S. Thompson, author of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
“When asked what he was reading these days, (Rick) James lit up again (in a good way): “Scary Monsters and Super Freaks, by Mike Sager… Because I’m in it and because Mike wrote it and Mike’s a dear friend.”
–The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“I was with him the night before he died, and believe it or not he was singing your praises, showing your book to the other girl that was there. He went on and on about you for a very long time, talked about your experience in the crack house, etc., etc. Another girl and I were the last two to see him alive.”
–Avarie S., L.A. set designer, upon the death of Rick James
Scary Good: Continuing with our theme of entertainment goodies that, well, don’t exactly fall into the feel-good category, there’s journalist Mike Sager’s Scary Monsters and Super Freaks: Stories of Sex, Drugs, Rock ‘n’ Roll and Murder (Thunder’s Mouth Press), a fantastic collection of the author’s non-fiction magazine chronicles on the life of porn star John Holmes (which inspired the flick Wonderland), Rob Lowe’s scandalous convention sex romp and “Superfreak” Rick James’ drug downfall. Lesser-knowns also make up some of the book’s best reads, including the story of an FBI agent who impregnated and killed an informant. You know those engrossing books that keep you up all night? Don’t pick this one up if you have somewhere to be the next morning.
–Guilty Pleasures, E Online<
Mike Sager is a bestselling author and award-winning reporter. He’s been called “the Beat poet of American journalism.” For more than forty years he has worked as a writer for the Washington Post, Rolling Stone, GQ and Esquire.
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