The Exploding Memoir

A mystery-fantasy thriller by the author of "Name of the Stranger" and "Murder in the Medina."Eddie Knox skips Pennsylvania before the local authorities can send him to reform school. After he settles in San Francisco’s Chinatown, the mysterious Dr. Kublar takes him under his wing. What seems a benign gesture, gifting him with a job running "errands," plunges him into a quest for an ancient stone tablet with powerful occult secrets. Now Eddie is the unwitting courier, cautiously threading his way between the authorities and the local tongs, against the backdrop of San Francisco’s underground music scene.“These are real maps of real places. That’s what marks the artist — he’s been there and has brought it back.” — William S. Burroughs on "Ports of Hell"“A perfect harmony of street rhythm and noir shadow as Strike’s anti-hero careens through the end of the sixties with cynical style. Colliding somewhere between Camus and Jim Carroll, Strike’s memoir shows us the real back alleys of San Francisco during its zeitgeist.” — Tom Pitts, author of "Hustle," "American Static"“Like a well-thumbed crime thriller, once you pick up The Exploding Memoir you won’t be able to put it down.” — Mike Stax, "Ugly Things" magazine

Johnny Strike is an American writer, mostly known as songwriter, guitarist and singer for the proto-punk band Crime based in San Francisco. Headpress published Strike's first novel in 2004, Ports of Hell, with a blurb by William S. Burroughs. Strike also interviewed Paul Bowles, Mohamed Choukri, Herbert Huncke and traveled, with extended stays in Morocco, Mexico, and Thailand, where he set his fiction. His writing has appeared in Ambit magazine, Headpress Journal, and Pulp Adventures. In 2008, Rudos and Rubes published his short story collection, A Loud Humming Sound Came From Above, illustrated by Richard Sala.