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CONGRATULATIONS TO NOAH LEVINE AND HIS BEAUTIFUL WIFE AMY FIELDS  ON THEIR SOON TO BE BABY GIRL, HAZEL.

Narcisa is the confession of a hungry ghost, the insatiable, the unloved core of humanity’s deepest sorrow. The addiction to suffering, which is the self-created Hell realm so vividly described in these pages. This beautifully written, brutally honest tale speaks to the wounded and weary child within each of us.

-Noah Levine  (Author of Dharma Punx and Against the Stream)

Thank you Ratso, for your “kind” words!

“Jonathan Shaw is a renaissance lowlife. Painter, tattoo artist, and now novelist. His openhearted prose reveals a man unabashed to be pussy-whipped by the Eternal Muse. This book is pure Magick- read it and weep. For joy.”

- Larry “Ratso” Sloman(Co-Author of Private Parts, Author of Reefer Madness: The History of Marijuana, Scar Tissue, and The Secret Life of Houdini)

Jonathan Shaw has had his passport stamped in hell so many times he could get his mail there. Vile as junkie-cum, beautiful as a dead drunk’s bible, Scabvender will keep you clawing at the pages, wondering how one man can wreak so much havoc, suffer so much for Art, and still have enough brains left to put a sentence together, let alone the heart to create this unique, riveting, hyper-colorful and –scariest of all — brutally true adventure. Written in blood, Scabvender takes us places most people never come back from. This is gonna hurt, motherfucker, but the author is living proof that whatever doesn’t kill you can get you laid… What are we, in the end, but the sum of our scars?

– Jerry Stahl, author of Permanent Midnight, and Perv- A Love Story

Finally, after twenty-plus years of coaxing, cajoling, pleading and basic needling on my part, my ol’ scallywag brother, Jonathan Shaw has put pen to paper, dragging and drudging up virulent and violent memories of his not so cute past and present.  Been waiting too long for this.  So have you, whoever you are, believe me.  If you don’t yet know him, you will. If you didn’t want to, too bad.  Once he’s in, he’s in. J.S.’s words, work, life, lives, deaths, rants, rage, hilarity and taste rank with the best of ‘em. 

If Hubert Selby Jr., Charles Bukowski, Ernest Hemingway, Jack Kerouac, William Burroughs, Neil Cassady, Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, the Marquis de Sade, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Joao Gilberto, Edward Teach, Charley Parker, Iggy Pop, Louis-Ferdinand Celine, R. Crumb, Robert Williams, Joe Coleman, Dashiell Hammett, E.M. Cioran and all of the Three Stooges had all been involved in some greasy, shameful, evil whorehouse orgy, Jonathan Shaw would surely be its diabolical, reprobate spawn”. - Johnny Depp

“Jonathan Shaw’s Narcisa- Our Lady of Ashes is one hell of a wild ride through the bizarre netherworld of his own damaged consciousness. His experiences are real and his language and insights kinetic and brutal. This is what the French would call “littérature maudit”, and Shaw’s writing certifies him as a subversive and criminal inhabitant of the world of human expression.”
- Jim Jarmusch

“Jonathan Shaw has made it through the eye of the needle into our lives. This kind of rite of passage gives his perspective a sense of the physical wold which he creates for us. To immerse ourselves in this bare-bones attitude is what a novel is supposed to do for a reader. Lucky us.” Thank you Debbie Harry for the kind words!

Meanwhile I’m tucked away in the office editing the final version of Narcisa as Jonathan continues his jungle journey with his looney cave woman. I haven’t heard from him today. I pray that he finds his way out of the lush tropical vines he’s all twisted up in and back to sunny Los Angeles soon. Miss you JS!