Scary Monsters and Super Freaks

Mike Sager’s bestselling debut collection is now available as an E-book with new material added.

 “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

Scary Monsters and Super Freaks brings together nineteen of Sager’s best true crime stories: “The Devil and John Holmes”, inspired the movies Boogie Nights and Wonderland. “The Martyrdom of Veronica Guerin” became a Disney film starring Cate Blanchett. In “Janet’s World,” Washington Post Pulitzer fabulist Janet Cooke gives her only complete interviews; in the “Final Days of Gary Condit” the disgraced Republican congressman and his wife speak out publically for the first and only time about the events surrounding the death of the young intern Chandra Levy.

“Damn, They Gonna Lynch Us”, the story of the beating by LA police of black motorist Rodney Glenn King, investigates the case that forever changed the racial history of America. “The Teachings of Don Carlos” is an in-depth examination of the controversial life and death of the shaman and writer Carlos Castaneda.

From the drug-fueled escapades of “the King of Funk” Rick James, to the shocking AIDS death of the seminal rap figure Eazy E, to the mass suicide of the Heaven’s Gate Cult, to actor Rob Lowe’s scandalous sex romp with an underage hairdresser at the Atlanta Democratic Convention, to a raid on a government research facility in the company of members of the Animal Liberation Front, to the fall from grace of the beautiful porn star Savannah… this collection of articles brings pop culture’s seamy underbelly into sharp focus.

“I can recognize the truth in these Sager stories– demoralizing tales about the darkest possible side of wretched humanity.”–Hunter S. Thompson, author, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

“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

“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 former chairman, Department of Journalism, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

“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

“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