High Life by Matthew Stokoe

First published 2002; reprinted by Akashic Books in 2008

Jack lives in a seedy part of LA, works at Donut Haven, is married to a hooker named Karen, and dreams of being a celebrity.  It doesn’t surprise him when Karen disappears after selling her kidney for $30,000. Expecting her to be on a prolonged bender, Jack goes looking for Karen and instead finds the police, in a park, examining a gutted body.  Jack soon enters into uncomfortable relationships with a police detective named Ryan and a seductive surgeon named Bella.  His life is about to become much better -- or much worse -- than he ever imagined.

High Life is noir on steroids. It has the blunt and gory mixture of sex, drugs, and violence that animates American Psycho, but it almost makes that novel resemble Winnie the Pooh by comparison. If you're put off by scatology, necrophilia, incest, and gruesome descriptions of death, you might want to give High Life a pass. On the other hand, if you can stomach the violence and the bizarre sexual appetites of the principle characters, you'll be rewarded with a masterful piece of writing, as well as an insightful examination of the seedy underbelly of Hollywood and the craving that certain outcasts feel for the well publicized lives of wealthy celebrities.

Matthew Stokoe makes the novel's first person narrator into a likable sociopath--no small feat, and a tribute to his authorial abilities. The tightly plotted story is credible, the characters are fully realized, and the atmosphere is a rich mix of the darkness of noir and the superficial sunshine of Hollywood. High Life is hard to put down and hard to forget.

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