Publishers Weekly
01/16/2023
Documentarian Yamas, a “boring middleclass white boy from the suburbs,” falls into a world of meth, the hedonistic “parTy n’ play” queer subculture, and drug dealing in this turbulent memoir. Thirty years old in 2016, newly addicted, and convinced his drug-addled descent will be worthy of film, Yamas defends his lifestyle even as his personal and professional relationships dissolve. Abruptly dumped, he aborts rehab, gets kicked off a film project, and flees Hollywood for the Bay Area to move in with his brother. He invites an old collaborator to work on a project but ends up selling meth instead, eventually securing “a heavy hitting deal with the Mexican Cartel” and Betty, a major local drug distributor—“a squat old lady, her hair stale blonde and slicked back like a greaser.” Even as he descends into a world of circling law enforcement and sleepless psychosis, he considers himself “a character... in this story about addiction and community and about the intersection of sex and drugs in gay culture. I mean, it’s about so much more that I’ve yet to even discover!” Wisely, he chooses to avoid moralizing, focusing instead on his gripping “experiential journey.” In the end, he makes it out, mind and body intact enough to produce this book. It’s a testament to resolve and a remarkable view of a multifaceted, and at-times destructive, subculture. Agent: Laura Usselman, Stuart Krichevsky Literary Agency. (Mar.)
From the Publisher
A vibrant, compelling memoir about gay culture and addiction. Brutally honest and thrillingly told, Tweakerworld shines a light on the dark places shame can lead us and demands we do not turn away. It is only through looking at them that we find a way out.” —JACK PARLETT, Author of Fire Island and The Poetics of Cruising
“Jason is an incredibly talented author who is able to do the masterful: take a story so lived in in its specificities and somehow engineer it so that it feels universal. His is a story both painfully unique, yet one that is dripping with humanity.” —EVAN ROSS KATZ, Writer
“Reading Jason Yamas’s memoir of crystal meth addiction—and, yes, of hope, can itself be a redemptive act. but it is also in some odd even troubling way a pleasure, which one realizes is what it feels like to be addicted.” —KEVIN SESSUMS, Bestselling author of Mississippi Sissy and I Left It On The Mountain
“Tweakerworld is many things: a raw confession, a solemn reflection, and a beautifully written page-turner. This intensely candid memoir shines a light on an underrepresented queer community in crisis. With humor, tenderness, and pathos, Yamas explores the connective tissue between addiction, sexuality, trauma, family, and identity.” —EMMA KOENIG, Author of F*ck I’m in My Twenties and Moan: Anonymous Essays on Female Orgasm
“There are few people brave enough to tell this story—and it’s one the world needs to hear—so what Jason Yamas has done with Tweakerworld is both groundbreaking and important. He traces the forces that lead a person into the world of PnP, captures the horror that lies in the wait, and the pathway out... Tweakerworld is a revelation.” —PATRICK STRUDWICK, Journalist
“If Gus Van Sant and Augusten Burroughs had a hot gay son that grew up to be a meth dealer, sex addict and general all-around lovable fuckup, this would be his story. And Jason Yamas tells it with heart and humor without taking out the perversity, insanity, despair and sweaty and erotic late night entanglements of living the PnP lifestyle to the extreme. Like the song that makes you cry in the middle of the dance floor, Tweakerworld gets you hard and breaks your heart at the same time.” —JOHN KROKIDAS, Director of Kill Your Darlings
“Some books are like doors to places so far removed from our experience that we might think they are other worlds: it may be tempting for anyone who has not experienced a crystal meth addiction to view this book this way. Yet this book insists, No, I am in your world… This is Yamas’s story of walking the line of survival and authenticity, grasping with insistent teeth at one of the core questions of queer life for those of us who grew up as the fodder for our culture’s moral panic: how can one bear so much shame and live?” —R/B MERTZ, Author of Burning Butch
“Tweakerworld is a profound examination of our worsening crystal meth crisis, its intersectionality with trauma and gay culture, and how one man fought to define—and love— himself amidst harrowing circumstances. At once heartbreaking and triumphant, Jason Yamas is unflinchingly brave with the lens he points at himself, addiction in its many forms, and the path to healing. From the first page to the last, I was inspired, humbled, and ever grateful for this gift of a memoir.” —REEMA ZAMAN, Author of I Am Yours: A Shared Memoir
