Stainless

Justine is a vampire. Keith just lives like one. An ex-junkie and ex-rock star, his hands mangled by his dead ex’s own jealous ex, he’s let go of his ambitions. It’s true that Justine has been around for a few centuries and Keith barely three decades, but they’re good for each other: Justine is teaching Keith to take the long view; Keith is reminding her how it feels to be alive. Yet a cohort of criminals, desperate artists, dead-enders, hangers-on, and wanna-bes, undead and otherwise, threaten their curious union. Can love stay untainted in a world of monsters?

First published in 1996, Todd Grimson’s Stainless is a noir fantasia, a symphony of bloody horror, and a woozy, erotic tour of night-side L.A.

Outsider Classics is Dead Ink’s resurrection ground for the strange, the silenced, and the outcasts. This series exhumes lost literary voices that were ahead of their time to restore them to the cult status they always deserved. From forgotten masterpieces to once-censored provocations, each title is a reaction against the canon curated for readers who want to stray into the margins and away from the mainstream.

Todd Grimson was the author of three novels and a collection of short fiction. His debut novel, Within Normal Limits, was the winner of the Oregon Book Award. His third, Brand New Cherry Flavor, was adapted into a Netflix limited series in 2021. He died in January 2025.