Dermaphoria

By: Craig Clevenger

Narrated by: Craig Clevenger

Bailed out of jail and holed up in a low-rent motel, amnesiac Eric Ashworth has only the memory of a woman’s name: Desiree. With steadily increasing doses of a strange new hallucinogen, Ashworth finds that the drug allows him to reassemble his past in broken fragments. But as he begins to lose touch with the present, his distinction between truth and fantasy begins to crumble, creating a world where divisions between love and loss, violence and tenderness, and fact and fiction are less discernible than they ought to be.

©2005 Craig Clevenger (P)2010 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

“Dermaphoria advances Clevenger’s dark art, powerfully evoking the paranoia of a man attempting to reconstruct his life.” ( San Francisco Magazine)

“Gloriously shifty puzzle-fiction whose resolution is much less important than the kaleidoscopic journey towards it.” ( Kirkus Reviews)

“A sometimes brilliant, heavily stylized novel whose psychedelic prose and labyrinthine story line will enthrall….” ( Publishers Weekly)

poetic & riveting

I couldn't stop listening. i'm so glad the author read it. The cadence of his narration together with his style of writing are a mesmerizing combination.

Twilight Zone?

I don't know where to start...I feel like I just got washed up on shore after being churned by a tsunami wave. Breaking Bad gone to the Outer Limits. A fourteen hour LAD trip.

Better on Audiobook

I would have given up on this book in 5 pages if I would have tried reading the novel. It was an easy listen in the background of my work day though. I thought the story was just ok. A lot of wading through descriptors to get to a small payoff at the end. I thought Craig did a great job reading his own writing.

Craig Clevenger proves both a genius, and a formidable voice actor.

Clevenger's writing, as always, is engaging, intriguing, and devours the reader whole. He narrates this book himself, and his voice, a low and raspy growl, has a Johnny Cash-like quality that is a true pleasure to listen to.

nightmares

If you are not having enough nightmares on your own, this book will help. It is an excruciating bad dream that achieves artfulness at a price.