INSIDE MARILYN MONROE

From Hollywood to New York, from New York back to Hollywood, the casual  friendship betweeen Marilyn Monroe and John Gilmore was building to a point where they were about to make a picture together but tragedy struck in Marilyn's life. Gilmore turned from acting to devote himself to writing and his memoir gathers Marilyn's personal life through many associates and stars known to both of them.

LAID BARE: A Memoir of Wrecked Lives and the Hollywood Death Trip

"Beautifully written in a style somewhere between Jack Kerouac and Charles Bukowski ..." -- Sight and Sound

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.

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."

HOLLYWOOD BOULEVARD

In a psychosomatic masterpiece, John Gilmore explores the dichotomy of a young man and woman's wants and desires as opposed to harsh reality. What starts as a simple photo shoot with a beautiful girl, leads Eli Woodrow into a world he never dreamed of, events he never expected, situations he never wanted; a whirlwind of conflicting emotions, sexual obsessions and ambiguity ... Subterranean Hollywood

CRAZY STREAK

“...  paints a crumbling American dream warped with individualturmoil 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

 

L. A. DESPAIR: A LANDSCAPE OF CRIMES AND BAD TIMES

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

SEVERED: THE TRUE STORY OF THE BLACK DAHLIA

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.

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 ..."

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

FETISH BLONDE

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."