River Phoenix died thirty years ago today, on a Hollywood sidewalk outside the Viper Room, in the early hours of Halloween. Costumed partygoers stepped around his body as he thrashed on the concrete and his younger siblings tried to keep him alive. If River were alive today, he would be 53 years old. I still […]
posted 31 October 2023 in Articles. no comments yet
I am delighted to announce that my book Last Night at the Viper Room: River Phoenix and the Hollywood He Left Behind is out in paperback today. So if you’ve been waiting for a bathtub-friendly copy, your time has come. I haven’t posted much about it lately, so may I remind you of a few […]
posted 21 October 2014 in Buy My Stuff. no comments yet
If you read books on a Kindle, or via Kindle software on your phone or your tablet of choice, and if you never got around to my most recent book, Last Night at the Viper Room: River Phoenix and the Hollywood He Left Behind (which the LA Weekly called “enormously compelling”–more reviews here), then you […]
posted 25 February 2014 in Buy My Stuff. 2 comments
I have been getting email requests from people who want to copies of Last Night at the Viper Room signed by me, either for themselves or for loved ones; I am happy to oblige, of course. The easiest and best way to make this happen, now that my two-city world tour has concluded, is for […]
posted 18 November 2013 in Buy My Stuff. no comments yet
I’ve received a fair number of reviews for Last Night at the Viper Room, which I hugely appreciate; when you spend many months writing a book, it’s a blessing whenever people read it and consider it seriously. (When they actually like it, all the better.) In case you’re curious about what people who are not […]
posted 12 November 2013 in Buy My Stuff, Links. no comments yet
One of the nice things about releasing a book is that smart people want to talk about it with you. If you’re interested in knowing more about about Last Night at the Viper Room, or if you just want to see how I handle answering questions instead of asking them, perhaps you’d like to check […]
posted 6 November 2013 in Buy My Stuff, Links. no comments yet
If you want to read full-length paragraphs on the topic of River Phoenix, woven together into a larger narrative, your best bet is the full-length biography I wrote that was published last week, Last Night at the Viper Room (available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Powell’s, or your local bookstore). But if you want […]
posted 1 November 2013 in Links, Outside. no comments yet
If you’d like to read some more samples of Last Night at the Viper Room: River Phoenix and the Hollywood He Left Behind, two sites have excerpts today, which happen to bookend each other: Refinery 29 has a taste of the introduction, while Slate has a chunk relating to Dark Blood and the final weeks […]
posted 31 October 2013 in Buy My Stuff, Excerpts. no comments yet
The website for the Russian edition of Rolling Stone has put up an excerpt from Last Night at the Viper Room (the chapter about the making of Stand by Me). I can’t speak to the quality of the translation, so I’m just going to assume that it’s excellent. It’s cool and surreal to see my […]
posted 29 October 2013 in Excerpts, Outside. 3 comments
Hello, citizens of Los Angeles and visitors to this fair city: Tonight (which is Monday night, October 28), I will be at the legendary Book Soup, starting at 7 pm, reading from Last Night at the Viper Room and answering questions on any topic you care to bring up, be it River Phoenix, Lou Reed, […]
posted 28 October 2013 in Buy My Stuff, News. no comments yet