The Last Generation of Chainsmokers -- A new bad-boy writer lights up Lit-Fiction

The Last Generation of Chainsmokers, the smashing debut novel of Stephen Creagh Uys, earns its writer a seat in literatures holding cell, next to Jack Kerouac, Bukowski, and Hubert Selby Jr. In this stunningly honest, heartbreaking and hilarious tale of besotted lovers, Uys (pronounced Ace") reveals the dark passion of alcoholics with an integrity and intensity not seen since classic works like Under the Volcano and Junkie. His novel shows a deep understanding of the brutality of modern life -- and the beauty it can lend to modern literature.

(PRWEB) April 25, 2004 --The Last Generation of Chainsmokers is set in New York City, where writer Stephen Creagh Uys lived in places that varied from the Chelsea Hotel to Tompkins Square Park. He waited tables at the Gotham Bar and Grill and other storied eateries, and became a fixture at the original Village Idiot and other dive bars of the Lower East Side. A brief stint as an actor landed him the role of bad boy in the Oscar-nominated Indie film, Metropolitan.

After a decade of living in the cross-hairs of Big Daddy O Apple, Uys moved to Harvard Square, Cambridge, trying with varying degrees of success to kick all sorts of habits. At Harvard University - He never enrolled, but made use of the computers in the Science Center. - Uys began the first draft of The Last Generation of Chainsmokers. After leaving Cambridge, he lived in relative comfort in Marthas Vineyard, he was homeless in Philadelphia, and finally fetched up in Los Angeles. He now lives quite reasonably in Long Beach, California, where he is working on a new novel.

At 37, Uys has seemingly come to terms with the madness of the years he chronicles in his book. He has battled depression, substance abuse and life in general. His debut novel is a triumphant stance against loneliness and pain, so often the hallmark of great American literature.

Uys's dark and dazzling novel draws on shifting, often fragmentary points of view to tell the aching loves story of a couple perfectly suited to each other but not the world. When Crane King and Kimberly Anderson first meet in The Village Idiot, it is the middle of the day and both are drunk. The story of their haywire passion in a downward-spiraling world is at once tender -- the exquisite pain of mad love -- and menacing in its descent toward impending catastrophe.

Uys takes no prisoners in this taut, harrowing book that moves seamlessly from Madison Avenue to the holding pens of The Tombs. Lives lived minimally loom large on every page, with brilliant, often savage wordplay, from a streetwise and savvy observer of the city that never sleeps.

Uys's work unquestionably merits a place beside the brilliant rogues of literature, whose tragic-beautiful stories allow the American public to visit the fascinating dark side that but for writings bad-boys would remain hidden from the rest of us.

Stephen Creagh Uys is a puzzle. The writer is at once perfectly spoken, seemingly well educated and boyishly handsome. One can imagine him living in a world made real by the lifestyle ads of J. Crew and Ralph Lauren. A reading of The Last Generation of Chainsmokers makes it painfully clear that although he could appreciate a 97 Napa Cabernet, he has seen a lot more of life, laughter and sorrow than the average Gen-Xer.

One fully expects to meet someone who has a first edition of The Last Generation of Chainsmokers: That book! I met the guy who wrote it in a bar. He traded me a copy for four drinks. He signed it for a fifth. Then he stole my girlfriend!" -- America has a new writing rebel. Let us drink to that!

The Last Generation of Chainsmokers by Stephen Creagh Uys
ISBN 0595758363(Hardcover) 0595309441(Paperback)
website: http://www.stephencreaghuys.com