Dermaphoria

Clandestine chemistry and the L.A. underworld provide the atmosphere for this tale of painful lost memories and the heartbreak of finding them. Eric Ashworth awakens in jail, unable to remember how he got there or why. His only memory is a woman’s name: Desiree. Bailed out and holed up in a low-rent motel, Eric finds the solution to his amnesia in a strange new hallucinogen. By synthesizing the sense of touch, the drug produces a disjointed series of sensations that slowly allow Eric to remember his former life as a clandestine chemist. With steadily increasing doses, Eric reassembles his past at the expense of his grip on the present, and his distinction between truth and fantasy crumbles as his paranoia grows in tandem with his tolerance. In Dermaphoria Clevenger creates a visceral world where divisions between love and loss, violence and tenderness, and fact and fiction prove to be less discernible than they ought to be. From the Trade Paperback edition.