Thrust into the seedy underworld of hack reporters and Soho drinking dens, young Richard Hermes is skidding down a cocaine slope of self-destruction in pursuit of the impossibly beautiful socialite-cum-columnist Ursula Bentley. But between Richard and his object of desire stands his omnipresent nemesis, the lubricious Bell, doyen of late night radio shows, provider of drugs and gossip, and ringmaster of the Sealink Club.

Erudite and witty as ever, this hilarious novella is vintage Self at his acerbic, incisive best, brilliantly illustrated by Martin Rowson's sharp, dark, satirical pen.

A tour de force

Self's sexually explicit fable bubbles with filth and bile, and Martin Rowson's splendid illustrations always rise to the occasion ...Spot-on

Self is the master of the art of a telling sentence, and his portrait is instantly recognisable from his swaggering prose ... Self and Rowson take the reader into the realm of Burroughs's "abysmal depths", exhibiting all the alchemic possibilities of narcotics

This sheer love of language, the belief that the high of literature is to be found by snorting words off a Webster's, sets Self up at the bar with great linguistic junkies like T.C. Boyle