Knottspeed: A Love Story - Softcover

Johnson's (Everything Under the Moon) second novel drops readers into the unpredictable world of the infamous and mysterious Knottspeed. The story begins in the middle of a string of unfortunate and poorly planned escapades with Knottspeed waking up in his dilapidated house, hurt, hungover, and barely able to walk. As one of Knottspeed's unwitting accomplices puts it, readers are dropped into the "middle of the opera" without knowing what started this odd man on his destructive path or what his endgame will be. Through dark, sarcastic humor glazed with cynical insights into the human condition, Johnson turns readers into confused collaborators in the outlandish, death-defying schemes through which Knottspeed drags his broken body. The object of his destructive search through Portland, Ore., and Los Angeles slowly comes to the forefront as he careens from bar to bar: a mysterious woman named Maria. Knottspeed is trying to find her with the aid of a paid friend named Fencepost Beckenshire, a slew of angry cab drivers, and a doctor who has lost his way. Bullets fly, knives are drawn, and death is waiting to join the fray as the characters cuss, fight, and drink their way out of the dull, uneventful lives they had led before Knottspeed arrived. Will they survive the chaos? Will they survive Knottspeed? All roads collide in Johnson's irreverent, chaotic novel, with an ending that will leave readers stunned.--Publisher's Weekly

"Phillip Marlowe meets Huston's Joe Pitt, Knottspeed is legendary, irreverent, and deeply funny. A philosophical love letter to vagabonds and outcasts everywhere."--Kate Moretti, New York Times bestselling author of The Vanishing Year and The Blackbird Season

Johnson wastes no time in establishing the world and characters as filthy washed out, dangerous -- albeit incredibly charming -- victims of life's cruel sense of humor. Like reading a Hunter S. Thompson parable by way of Chandler and Westlake, the story screams along at the speed of sound . . . . Exciting, hilarious and well-written. . . . Titular character Knottspeed barges into the lives of an alcoholic piano player, a disillusioned doctor and a bemused cabbie as he works to get back to the only woman he's ever loved. A whirlwind of a man, Knottspeed seems to work as an agent of chaos until it all begins to become very clear that his actions may be more deliberate than anyone can or will believe."--RT Book Reviews

Advance Praise for Everything Under the Moon (Soft Skull Press, September 2016):

"There's a whole world out there, that most of us never need to know about. A world of predators and prey, and predators who prey on predators. It's a dog eat dog world, and things are getting a bit hairy. It's Jeff Johnson's world, where the volume is always cranked up to eleven, the violence is cranked up to the max, and it's just one damned thing after another. The pace is fast, the plot is racing, and restraint has been kicked into the gutter. And it's got werewolves. What more do you want?" --Simon R. Green, New York Times Bestselling author of Tales from the Nightside

Advance Praise for Lucky Supreme (Skyhorse Publishing, 2016):

"Jeff Johnson writes with a poet's rhythm, a boxer's attitude and an artist's sense of style and flair."--Norman Green, Shamus Award-winning author

Praise for Tattoo Machine

"Jeff Johnson is a gifted and natural born storyteller."--John Irving, Academy Award-winning author of The Cider House Rules

"Tattoo Machine is meticulously observed, savagely funny, and deeply compassionate. It's a tale of up-from-under redemption through the shadowed art of personal symbolism. Jeff Johnson is a sharp-eyed master tattoo artist and an extraordinary writer."--Katherine Dunn, author of Geek Love

"An amazing firsthand account of all things you wondered about tattoo shops. I loved it."--Gus Van Sant

"A wry, tender story about the tribulations of flesh and ink--and funny as hell. I've never understood why people get tattoos, but after reading Jeff's excellent book I may just get one myself." --Steve Dublanica, author of New York Times Bestselling Waiter Rant?

"For everyone out there who is as fascinated by skin art as much as I am, Jeff Johnson's memoir is a must read, a gritty, brutally honest account of his life and years in the tattoo business. Equally hilarious, alarming, heartbreaking, rebellious, and philosophical, Tattoo Machine gets inside your head and leaves an impression that goes deeper than any needle, one that will only be wiped away when you, dear customer, are dead and gone."--Donald Ray Pollock, author of Knockemstiff?

"Tattoo parlors are showcases for the socially disreputable, the brazenly nonconformist and the indelibly creative, all on display in this colorful memoir."--Publishers Weekly

"One of the best books I've read so far this year... a reading experience that transcends the subject matter."--Jeff VanderMeer

"Funny, outlandish, and sometimes disturbing..."--New York Post

"Astonishing candor and brilliant imagery."--London Free Press

"Absolutely fascinating."--Washington Post

Enigmatic, charming, and brutally resourceful, Knottspeed is a man on a mission. He also happens to be dead, but the rumors of his demise have been slightly exaggerated—by the man himself as the key to his plan.

A problem-solver, a finder of lost people and rare things, and an accomplished criminal, Knottspeed is experiencing Big Love for the first time in his life, and his elaborately orchestrated plot to reunite with his beloved will profoundly affect everyone he meets, including a rudderless, alcoholic piano player; a wealthy, dispassionate doctor; and an amiable-but-desperate cab driver. From the bars and graveyards of Portland, Oregon to the taco stands and charity hospitals of East Los Angeles, Knottspeed is the uncompromisingly offbeat story about the momentum of love.