BOOKS

Remarkable portraits, incisive insights into the lives of the likes of killers, Barbara Graham, the "Ice Blonde"; subhuman murderer Billy Cook; one-time King of Western Swing, Spade Cooley who was convicted of killing his wife.  Notorious episodes from the dark side of Los Angeles. such as the descent into ignominy of once-beautiful actress, Barbara Payton,  actors, Tom Neal, Franchot Tone and porn star John Holmes

“...  paints a crumbling American dream warped with individual turmoil and dangerous sexual obsession. Gilmore’s provoking characters, sans a sense of retribution, populate this decaying, throw-away California desert town set against High Sierras where his protagonist breaks from his suffocation as in a holy act of self-destruction, rising lawlessly above a conscience—or retribution. A tragic story overflowing with violence and intense, graphic, illegal sex fused with criminal indulgence. ...  ~ Lawrence Grobel 

The most shocking and sensational book written on Hollywood's most spectacular, and haunting, "unsolved" murder.  The first full-length true crime book on this horrific case, SEVERED has become a modern classic.  The most successful "cult" book in its field, this neo-noir investigative account is highly endorsed by David Lynch, Gary Indiana, Charles Higham, Lawrence Grobel, and many others.

See Marilyn Manson paintings based on photos from SEVERED: artworkonline

MARILYN MANSON:
"SEVERED is my favorite book... John Gilmore is my favorite writer.  It has been my desire to direct SEVERED as a movie ... my directorial debut ..."

         LIVE FAST-DIE YOUNG: Remembering the Short Life of James Dean

A controversial first, revealing James Dean from the inside  out by someone who knew him intimately, in more ways than one.  John Gilmore hung out with Dean during the early days in New York, and again in Hollywood after Dean starred in his first movie, East of Eden.  

Here is a never-before-seen portrait of this complex young idol, obsessed with "riding the black ship to hell."  

         MANSON: The Unholy Trail of Charlie and The Family

Random murder and savage overkill, mind control and bad trips, Satanism and witchcraft, cursed glamour, Haight Ashbury, rock 'n' roll, biker gangs, sexual rebellion & dune buggies tearing across Death Valley in search of the hole in the Earth...

"Vividly recounts in the Manson Family's own words the harrowing story of the Manson murders and Manson's bizarre life."  -- Los Angeles Times Book Review

Gilmore now draws upon his personal experiences to turn his sights on our morbid obsession with celebrity, and the ruinous price it exacts from those who pursue it.  With caustic clarity, and 20/20 hindsight, Gilmore unstintingly recounts his relationships with the likes of Janis Joplin, Jack Nicholson, Brigitte Bardot, Dennis Hopper, Jane Fonda, Jean Seberg, and many other denizens of the twentieth century's dubious Pantheon. 

     William S. Burroughs says of Gilmore's novel, "What's here, what's crawling out is held in madness and frenzy."  FETISH BLONDE is a trip of labyrinthine plot expressed in terms of subterranean violence and depravity, a dark venture into a Parisian night world where people's worst nightmares can--and do--come horribly true. 

"Gilmore writes with a brilliant but biting clarity that turns almost vicious at times...unnerving, striking at the finer sensibilities and the vital points." Warren Beath 

        COLD-BLOODED: The Saga of Charles Schmid:  The Notorious "Pied Piper of Tucson"

A detailed account of the murder of young girls by Charles Schmid, a teen idol of the depths of Tucson.  He went through life at "a million miles an hour,"  trying to convince himself someone cared. A lonely boy concealing an emptiness so vast that he sought to fill it by tempting "God" to punish him.  This intimate portrait of a seething teenage scene allows us to see the pitiful and frightening aspects of these heirs to an empty culture and a rootless society.

New York Times  Book  Review: "Here is a narrative of shadow-life, death, and trial that is revealing and shocking  and most disturbing."  

click on books for more info
John Gilmore's books are available at AMAZON and BARNES AND NOBLE