I've been promoting it all week and here it is: My memoir, Dead Star Twilight, is now available in a special updated edition and, most importantly, on a pay-what-you-want basis. The e-book can be downloaded free-of-charge by clicking the link below; if you decide that you'd like to pay for it, just drop whatever you feel is fair -- or whatever you can afford -- into the Paypal electronic tip jar in the sidebar on the right-hand side of the screen. Put in a few bucks. Put in more. Put in nothing at all. It's honestly your choice. The only goal for me is to get as many people as possible to read this book.
For those who happen to be brand new around here, Dead Star Twilight documents in occasionally brutal detail my descent into drug addiction while living and working in Los Angeles, my decision to get clean and time in a county-funded rehab center in Miami, and my fight for a measure of redemption while working for NBC News in New York City in the aftermath of 9/11. I won't get into specifics beyond that; you'll just have to read for yourself, and now you can do that for nothing more than a little of your time.
I do want to make a few things clear, in the interest of full disclosure and in an effort to head off any of the inevitable nagging questions that pop into people's heads when they read memoirs these days. They're the same points I made when I first put Dead Star Twilight out into the ether three years ago.
As the story in the book is told from my point of view and relays the events I experienced as best I remember them, I have no illusions about the fact that it may not necessarily jibe with the perspectives of the very real people with whom I interacted during the period I chronicled. There was a time when these kinds of disclaimers weren't necessary, but that was before writers began getting busted left and right for creating fabulist fantasies out of their pasts. Know that I did my level best to ensure that the story I told was as factual as I could make it, but I offer no apologies for having a unique perspective.
Included in the story of Dead Star Twilight, you'll find quite a bit of detailed dialogue, the veracity of which any reasonable person would question. The fact is that the conversations were transcribed from nothing more than my own memory and I hope that where I may have been forced to "fill in the gaps" here and there, I stayed true to the spirit of what was actually said.
There are a few things within the story that have been changed outright from the events as I remember them, mostly for the sake of hiding the identities of those people and places who likely wouldn't want to see themselves identified in a public forum. Certain names and physical characteristics have been altered; some settings were moved around slightly; the chronology of one or two incidents related in the story have been adjusted to make them fit along the timeline and to avoid the book clocking in at 600 pages. Once again, I won't apologize for any of this as it in no way adversely affects the spirit of the story. That said, I want to make it clear that all the "characters" depicted in Dead Star Twilight are real; they aren't "composites." Likewise, the overall events detailed in the story really did happen and are relayed to the absolute best of my ability. While I wanted the book to be an entertaining and powerful read, I didn't want it to be bullshit, not if I was pushing it as non-fiction.
As I said, I have no doubt that my memories of the events in Dead Star Twilight will differ from those of others who lived through the same situations.
But those are their stories to tell.
This is mine.
I hope you enjoy it.
Download Dead Star Twilight Here
(To convert the PDF to E-pub or other Kindle and iPad friendly formats of your choosing, go here and/or here.)
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