The Tate-LaBianca Homicide Research Blog

Pulp Fiction meets Requiem for a Dream?

Sick City: A Novel by Tony O'neill

This is a comletely fictitious tale (no new "facts" here folks)... but, the book has recieved 100% positve feedback from 13 "raving" reviewers on Amazon... so, if you're into this kinda stuff... it may be a fabulous read. 

In short: "Aging, drug-snarfing rent-boy Jeffrey inherits one hell of a hand-me-down from his suddenly dead ex-cop lover: a 16mm film featuring Sharon Tate at the center of an all-star Hollywood gangbang. Checking himself into rehab, Jeffrey meets Randal, a meth-using son of movie-industry royalty, and the two of them plot to fence the film. For them, this is honest work, but their utter lack of willpower means they keep shooting themselves in the foot (and arm, leg, and neck)". http://www.amazon.com/Sick-City-Novel-Tony-Oneill/dp/0061789747/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1310165608&sr=8-1
Book Submitted by Shak El!  Thanks Shak El!

"Click" Below to read a few really positive reviews....

SICK CITY is set in Los Angeles, though the events described here could take place in virtually any city or country where the illicit drug trade has taken hold. But L.A. is arguably the perfect tableau for it, given that location's reputation as a place where dreams come true or are shattered, and everything and everyone is for sale.

Tony O'Neill's novel is about drugs and the people who take them and are addicted to them. Pure and simple with no apologies. O'Neill knows of what he speaks and writes authoritatively on the subject. What SICK CITY does is takes the grit and grime of, say, NAKED LUNCH by William Burroughs and makes it coherent --- no cut-up technique here --- within the context of a caper novel, as imagined by Elmore Leonard. To put it another way, it consists of the parts of the movie Pulp Fiction that couldn't be filmed. The camera lens would have burned out.

SICK CITY neither explicitly condemns nor implicitly glorifies drug addiction. It simply provides an unblinking and stark look at the lives of a number of people, including a down-and-out exotic dancer, a homosexual prostitute in denial, a host of addicts and drug dealers, and a drug rehabilitation guru who is nursing his own nasty little secret. Points of view change frequently, and you might want to take this book in one long sitting in order to appreciate just how fascinating it is to watch everyone's lives intersect with each other. When the dust settles and the smoke clears, however, the book is about Jeffrey and Randall, two irredeemable junkies who acquire --- along with cash and some extremely strong controlled substances --- a sex tape involving Sharon Tate and a number of deceased celebrities. They want to sell it for a fortune --- gainful employment is not high on the "to do" list of either gentleman --- but along the way they attract the attention and ire of Pat, an extremely dangerous and unbalanced drug dealer who is out for revenge.

Most of SICK CITY occurs where the buses don't run, and even if they did, those who are in their right minds would never want to go there. And if you wandered into those areas by accident, you would call OnStar to come send a helicopter to get you the heck out. Even if you have not led a sheltered life, there are scenes here that you have never encountered before and probably never will see again: acts of physical and sexual violence --- some voluntary, some not so much --- that you would be hard-pressed to make up on your own. O'Neill's writing is shot through with such straight-ahead prose that the book reads more like a documentary, in the best sense, than a work of fiction.

And, while I have the feeling that this was not his intent, it is possibly one of the most anti-drug treatises I have ever read. The subject matter is such that you wouldn't read it to your 12-year-old, yet if you wanted to warn them away from that first hit of speed, SICK CITY would be the perfect vehicle to utilize. By the time you felt they were old enough to handle all of the material, it would probably be too late.

SICK CITY makes Jim Thompson's novels look like Little Golden Books. And I love Thompson's work. There were times that I wondered, Why are you reading this? But just like Jeffrey and Randal, I couldn't stop. And I'm going to find O'Neill's other novels, too. By the way, the Mark Twain Hotel that O'Neill describes here is a real place.
--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
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Sick City is pretty raw stuff. More plot-driven than Tony O'Neill's memoirish other books but still set in the same milieu (junkies scrabbling to get it together in LA, but just digging themselves deeper in a series of harrowing and sometimes hilarious setpieces), the novel is an excellent, disturbing, entertaining, and illuminating chronicle of two guys trying to sell the ultimate porn tape. They have all the tools to get rich, they just can't stop screwing up.
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I read this cover to cover on an airplane and the time flew by. I was completely emersed in the characters and the story. This is the first book I've read by O'Neill and I will certainly be coming back for more. Slash's blurb on the front cover couldn't have been more accurate.