Deviant Behavior: A Novel of Sex, Drugs, Fatherhood, and Crystal Skulls - Softcover

Sager, Mike

Softcover

ISBN 10: 080217048X ISBN 13: 9780802170484

Publisher: Grove Press, Black Cat, 2008

Synopsis

Jonathan Seede is the picture of Washington, DC, respectability, an urban pioneer with a pretty wife, a new baby, and a job at the town’s most esteemed newspaper. But ten blocks from the White House, on the notorious Fourteenth Street strip, a war is raging over deviant behavior. And Seede is on the front lines, deep into a secret freelance project that’s taking him to places where most people would never dare to go.

As he descends into an inferno of repressed urges and human frailties, Seede’s journey plays out against a brilliantly realized portrait of the nation’s capital, featuring pimps and hustlers, an accidental hooker, an honest cop, a storefront prophet/marijuana dealer, a beautiful teenage runaway, a crack-addicted music legend, an A-list gay activist, and a diminutive billionaire who is searching for the answers to life’s greatest questions in a crystal skull. The first novel from best-selling journalist Mike Sager, Deviant Behavior is a mad, vivid, and daring romp through a society in crisis, and the story of what happens when one frustrated father decides to Just Say Yes.

About this title

About the Author

Mike Sager is currently writer-at-large for Esquire.

Reviews

Sager blends a magnified slice of urban subculture in late 1980s-early '90s Washington, D.C., with a subplot about powerful mystical artifacts. Washington Herald reporter, reluctant new father, urban pioneer and druggie Jonathan Seede is working on a book that subverts the Just Say No movement. Things hit a snag when his main source, the Pope of Pot, a do-gooder dealer who only sells primo pot, gets framed by dirty cops for dealing coke. One of the pope's possessions—a crystal skull rumored to have magical powers—ends up in the hands of a runaway who finds shelter in Seede's house. Other characters, like pimp Jamal Alfred and Salem, one of Jamal's girls with a shady past, contribute to the sleazy milieu and provide entrée to the wealthy Bert Metcalfe, who has designs on the crystal skull. Though the supernatural elements are unfortunately muted, Sager studs his dark D.C. tale with sharp observations and an addictive neo-noir sensibility. (Apr.)
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Edition details

• Publisher: Grove Press, Black Cat
• Publication date: 2008
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 080217048X
• ISBN 13: 9780802170484
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 304