Synopses & Reviews
In this hilarious, frenetic, adrenalin-charged debut, Rayo Casablanca does for modern day Williamsburg, Brooklyn, what Bret Easton Ellis's
Less than Zero did for '80s L.A.-but with a knowing grin and a far cooler soundtrack...
Williamsburg, Brooklyn, is the center of the hipster universe, and the members of the Whole Sick Crew are its shining stars. The gang includes Wolfgang, a heavy metal musician and high school guidance counselor who supplies coke to his charges; Rad, a doctor obsessed with obscure new wave songs who has a bad habit of cutting himself when he's stressed; Beth Ann, the neighborhood's queen knitter who's slowly going blind and Harrison, a museum curator moonlighting as a writer of highly prized porn. Collectively, they're the arbiters of taste for every vinyl-loving, Gap-spurning, thrift store regular in town. But lately someone has been laying waste to Brooklyn's uber-hipsters, dispatching them in gruesome fashion.
The cops are dragging their heels, but the Whole Sick Crew knows that a serial killer dubbed Doctor Jeep is responsible. They have a plan to stop him and it's about to go spectacularly awry. Before the week is over, they'll be up to their skinny-jeaned waists in mayhem, manipulation, contract killers, raw sewage, and murderous monkeys. Something is rotten in the state of Billyburg, and the last hipsters standing will discover just how rotten it really is...
Review
"6 Sick Hipsters is a wild ride of a novel. Something of a magical-realist noir that brings a whole new meaning to the fashionable idea of the death of the hipster. It's enough to make one nervous about leaving the house in a Pavement t-shirt." Jeff Parker, author of Ovenman
Review
"[A] wild, poignant, twisted, bitterly funny page turner with dead-on dialogue and a wonderful ensemble cast. Rayo Casablanca has written the big novel the hipster generation has been waiting for." Jason Starr, author of The Follower
Review
"[T]akes more daring, shocking, bloody turns than Pulp Fiction. Rayo Casablanca pulls no punches. Oh, but you'll take 'em...and love every jolt." Kemble Scott, author of Soma
Review
"What separates 6 Sick Hipsters from every other thriller about serial killers ritualistically murdering Brooklyn's cultural elite is that it's just so darn informative. Before reading Rayo Casablanca's weirdly fascinating debut, I didn't realize it was possible to have an out-of-body experience while taking a crap, or why you shouldn't accept acid from a morbidly obese Phillip K. Dick fan, or how knitting your own clothing can temporarily delay blindness. Sure, it's got gripping plot twists and hilarious characters, but it's also brimming with practical advice, like what to do if you're attacked by a feral baboon or how to avoid being shot in the asshole. Think you're gonna get that kind of life guidance from James Patterson or Michael Connelly? Don't count on it. If you're like me and you've always suspected that the meaning of life can be calculated with geometric stripping, and that cannibalism just might explain why everybody around you is so stupid, then you owe it to yourself to pick up this book. If Casablanca had just included a few Feng Shui tips and maybe a recipe for spicy hummus, 6 Sick Hipsters would be the only book you'd ever need. As it is, it's still pretty damn indispensable." Eric Spitznagel, author of Fast Forward: Confessions of a Porn Screenwriter