United States History - Social Aspects, United States Studies - General & Miscellaneous, Subculture, Drugs & Controlled Substances - Social Aspects

Clubland

Name: Clubland
Author: Frank Owen
ISBN: 9780767917353

by Frank Owen

Available on Bookshop Write a review

Books.org participates in affiliate programs including Bookshop.org and the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. We may earn a commission from qualifying purchases made through links on this page, at no additional cost to you.

Overview

Outrageous parties. Brazen drug use. Fantastical costumes. Celebrities. Wannabes. Gender-bending club kids. Pulse-pounding beats. Sinful orgies. Botched police raids. Depraved criminals. Murder.

Welcome to the decadent nineties club scene.

In 1995, journalist Frank Owen began researching a story on Special K, a designer drug that fueled the after-midnight club scene. He went to buy and sample the drug at the internationally notorious Limelight, a crumbling church converted into a Manhattan disco, where mesmerizing music, ecstatic dancers, and uninhibited sideshows attracted long lines of hopeful onlookers. Owen discovered a world where reckless hedonism was elevated to an art form, and where the ever-accelerating party finally spun out of control in the hands of notorious club owner Peter Gatien and his minions. In Clubland, Owen reveals how a lethal drug ring operated in a lawless, black-lit realm of fantasy, and how, when the lights came up, their excesses left countless victims in their wake.

Praised for his risk-taking and exhilarating writing style, Frank Owen has spawned a hybrid of literary nonfiction and true crime, capturing the zeitgeist of a world that emerged in the spirit of “peace, love, unity and respect,” and ended in tragedy.

Synopsis

Outrageous parties. Brazen drug use. Fantastical costumes. Celebrities. Wannabes. Gender-bending club kids. Pulse-pounding beats. Sinful orgies. Botched police raids. Depraved criminals. Murder.

Welcome to the decadent nineties club scene.

In 1995, journalist Frank Owen began researching a story on Special K, a designer drug that fueled the after-midnight club scene. He went to buy and sample the drug at the internationally notorious Limelight, a crumbling church converted into a Manhattan disco, where mesmerizing music, ecstatic dancers, and uninhibited sideshows attracted long lines of hopeful onlookers. Owen discovered a world where reckless hedonism was elevated to an art form, and where the ever-accelerating party finally spun out of control in the hands of notorious club owner Peter Gatien and his minions. In Clubland, Owen reveals how a lethal drug ring operated in a lawless, black-lit realm of fantasy, and how, when the lights came up, their excesses left countless victims in their wake.

The New York Times

With Clubland, Owen has provided rich fodder for 100 ''Law & Order'' episodes. — Hugo Lindgren

About the Author, Frank Owen

Frank Owen has written for The Village Voice, Spin, Details, Vibe, Newsday, and The Washington Post. He lives with his wife in New York City.

Reviews

There are no reviews yet. Log in to write one.

Editorials

The New York Times

With Clubland, Owen has provided rich fodder for 100 ''Law & Order'' episodes. — Hugo Lindgren

The Washington Post

What follow are interwoven stories involving drugs, sex, thievery and murder in a milieu of greed, arrogance, violence, cruelty and betrayal in the lives of some of the most dazzling players of that era's nightlife, Lord Michael Caruso, Peter Gatien, Michael Alig and Chris Paciello. Equally frightening is evidence of an overzealous DEA that spends extravagantly, lies, connives, and victimizes innocents while ostensibly carrying out the country's war on drugs. The "harsh truths" reported by Owen deserve to be reflected upon by inheritors of the partying life and society at large. — Mary Ishimoto Morris

Publishers Weekly

To anyone who's ever wondered what went on in the 1990s' most notorious nightclubs, Village Voice reporter Owen has a highly engaging answer. He weaves together three strands of masterful reporting, focusing on Peter Gatien, the nightclub impresario who owned Limelight and the Tunnel in Manhattan; Chris Paciello, the gangster who started Miami Beach's Liquid; and "club kid king" Michael Alig, the party promoter and Gatien employee who murdered his friend Angel Melendez. Alig's drug-addled story is the most grotesque and chilling: a few weeks before he hacked off the legs of his dead friend, he had thrown a "Blood Feast" party in which some guests "came covered in raw liver and slabs of beef." The author has apparently settled down now; "life is too precious to waste spending your time lurking around VIP rooms and getting high." At one time, though, he was a true believer in clubs and raves "as perfect but temporary democracies of desire," and is saddened by the crime that came to surround them. He has a distinctive writing style, recklessly mixing metaphors-one woman is "the proverbial tough cookie laced with arsenic straight from the pages of a hard-boiled novel"-and packing his chapters with noirish "wise guys" and "feds." It's a treat for fans of true crime, but armchair party animals will also appreciate the lengths to which this reporter goes-the book opens with Owen seeking, buying and tripping on the drug ketamine. Agent, Todd Shuster. (May) Forecast: This book will appeal to fans of mobster lore, celebrity DJs and drug culture. Both James St. James's 1999 book Disco Bloodbath and this year's film Party Monster, starring Macauley Culkin, treat Michael Alig, the character who takes up about a third of Clubland. Neither were mega-hits, but the story has a solid niche audience. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll, minus the sex, and, for that matter, the rock'n'roll. This book, narrated by Gerard Doyle, chronicles the seedy business side of the New York drug scene of the early 1990s as fueled by innumerable illegal substances (like Special K, a veterinary anesthetic). Biographies and scoop on some luminaries, like businessman Peter Gatien, are provided. These businesspeople, their minions, and various others cultivated an atmosphere favoring drugs and made-and lost-obscene amounts of money. Though workable, the material is often dry and annoyingly detailed as it records a dreary and terribly hedonistic time where no one seemed to have any fun. An optional purchase for large public libraries; though relatively inexpensive, it will need to be repackaged for circulation.-Douglas C. Lord, Oxford P.L., CT Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Village Voice reporter Owen goes deep inside Manhattan's nightclub scene and uncovers the sinister sleaziness inside the glamorous exterior. Everyone knows there's more to club life than shocking hairstyles and fierce DJs. But during years of on-the-scene investigation, Owen finds things far more troubling than Ecstasy overdoses and backroom brawls. Prostitution, theft, drug addiction, and murder throng under the disco ball as he explores the empire built in New York by nightlife king Peter Gatien during the 1990s and the multi-pronged campaign waged by the government to bring the impresario to his knees at any cost. While undercover agents fabricate evidence against Gatien, the entrepreneur is off on drug binges with hookers; while his Mob-connected underlings rat each other out to gain an edge over their rivals, innocent--or relatively innocent--people are killed in the crossfire. Crime abounds inside and outside the clubs, and as the case against Gatien grows, so do the number of shady deals various criminals cut with authorities to save their own hides and settle old scores. Incorporating endless interviews with every character even tangentially connected to the plot he narrates, Owen's reporting is exhaustive. Sometimes, unfortunately, it is also exhausting: so much double-crossing, backstabbing, and deal-making is a bit excessive for anyone not utterly wrapped up in the club scene. It doesn’t help that owners, promoters, ravers, dealers, attorneys, narcs, and thugs alike are all utterly despicable and loathsome, making it hard to muster sympathy for any of these lowlifes and even harder to sustain interest in their plights. Owen does an admirable job of surveying his subject fromevery angle, but there isn't a single one that makes the picture any less ugly. Expertly reported, but not for the squeamish. Agent: Todd Shuster/Zachery Shuster Harmsworth