Chelsea Horror Hotel: A Novel (Paperback)

by Dee Dee Ramone (Author) "MIKE IS sixty-eight years old..." (more)
Key Phrases: sewer worms, paint storage room, chelsea hotel, Johnny Thunders, New York City, Twenty-third Street (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Dee Dee Ramone doesn’t quite know what he’s getting himself into when he and his wife Barbara move into the squalid Chelsea Hotel with their dog Banfield. He spends most of his time trying to score drugs and walking Banfield, with whom he can magically communicate. Meanwhile, he can’t stand his neighbors and shies away from violence, but wishes everyone were six feet under. He also thinks that the room he’s staying in is the very room where his old friend Sid Vicious stabbed Nancy Spungen, and begins having nightmares of Nancy emerging from the bathroom with a knife wound. After one of his nightmares, an evil force enters his hotel room and hurls him against a wall. Dee Dee also gets involved with the transvestite lover of one of his gay fellow addicts. When his wife finds out, the two fight it out and become seriously wounded. During all this, Dee Dee is tormented by the living and dead demons that plague the hotel, along with the ghosts of his old dead punk rock friends Sid Vicious, Johnny Thunders and Stiv Bators. And that’s when the Devil himself decides to join the party…

Product Details

• Paperback: 252 pages
• Publisher: Da Capo Press (May 10, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1560253045
• ISBN-13: 978-1560253044
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #223,098 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Shocker, In More Ways Than One, March 25, 2004

By	K. Brown "El Rudo Lucky Pierre!" (Walnut, Ca USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

I picked up this book as a Ramones fan, and on a whim. I was expecting something entertaining, perhaps crass and cutting edge, but I was floored to find a really great piece of work by Dee Dee Ramone.

Where do I start? How do I categorize this book? Horror? Humor? Autobiography? All of the above, I must say. Part Dante's Inferno, part Kafka's Metamorphosis, part Phillip K. Dick's "A Scanner Darkly," yet all Dee Dee Ramone. I'm serious! My major in college was Comparative Literature, and reading Chelsea Horror Hotel brought me back to the most beautifully twisted examples of literature, both classic and modern, that I have read. Put Dante Alighieri and Franz Kafka in a time machine, point them toward CBGB's, and you're there!

Dee Dee Ramone sets himself as the central character, shacking up with his girl Barbara and dog Banfield at The Chelsea Hotel, New York's hang-out for the underground hipsters. It is also the site where Sid Vicious killed Nancy Spungeon in the late 1970s.

The entire story takes you through Dee Dee's paranoia of AIDS, perpetual quest to shoot up, repeated encounters with ghosts of dead friends like Sid Vicious and Stiv Bators, bloody murders, the awareness of a secret Satanic society that conducts grisly tortures in the hotel basement, and occasional desperate plea-bargains with God. What makes this story so twisted is the coming and goings of the "fine lines." There are times when it is clear that a segment is grounded in Dee Dee's light grip on reality, but these moments often morph into disturbing paranormal events that seem to indicate that Dee Dee is swimming through a blurry array of nightmares, drug induced hallucinations, sheer paranoia, or improbable realities. It's often hard to tell! Yet the reader is never lost; you will find yourself racing through the pages, eager to see how each frightening misadventure is solved.

Part of what makes this story work so well is that while Dee Dee is the main focus of the story, he avoids painting himself as a sympathetic character. He portrays himself as a borderline sort who, despite frequent self-serving and malicious actions, believes that he is a nice person who is wronged and agitated by all who surround him. He does an excellent job of illustrating an individual who is emotionally tormented and forever craving a fix. Unlike so many "street poets," you see no glamour in his crack & heroin surroundings; you see one great big nightmare.

Nightmarish from start to finish, yes. Strange thing is, despite the desperation throughout the novel, I did not find it depressing in the least. I found myself impatient to get to the next page, just to see the next twisted mess Dee Dee would get himself into.

And forget the lame anti-drug films our health teachers showed us throughout our junior high years; "Chelsea Horror Hotel" would make me steer clear of the rock, the pipe, and the needle FOR GOOD!

One caution: this book is not for the weak of heart (or stomach). Lots of graphic descriptions of blood, vomit, and millions of grotesque mealie-mealie bugs!

"Chelsea Horror Hotel" is Dee Dee's crowning bookshelf glory. It may not be a bestseller, but I hope it nevers fades into complete obscurity. Dee Dee Ramone may be gone from this world, and I hope he's at peace in a much more placid setting than The Chelsea Horror Hotel!

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars And you thought you were having a bad day..., May 14, 2001

By	Rebeca Thorvund (San Jose, California United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I pre-ordered "Chelsea Horror Hotel" and read the entire book the day it arrived. Dee Dee's first novel is highly entertaining. Funny, bizarre, icky, and creepy, it centers around Dee Dee's life at his apartment in the Chelsea Hotel. He thinks he is living in the room where Nancy Spungen died and things just get worse from there. He is in hell, dealing with his meanie wife Barbara, his nagging talking dog Banfield, and the other creepy residents of the hotel. Dee Dee tries to keep to himself but everyone is so annoying he tangles with them, hoping to save his sanity. That only exacerbates his problems. To top it all off, he is soon hounded by the pain in the butt ghosts of Johnny Thunders, Jerry Nolan, and Sid Vicious. Dee Dee writes in his inimitable deadpan style and his vivid imagination and graphic details make the story really come alive. He's always been a gifted storyteller. Right on, Dee Dee!

17 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Dee Dee needs Psycho Therapy, February 1, 2002

By	A. Liebling (Long Island City, NY United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

If William Burroughs had a drugged-out nightmare involving Bret Easton Ellis' gory scenes from American Psycho, and it was all written out by an 11-year old, it might read something like Chelsea Horror Hotel. This short novel (generous line spacing, margins and font size make this 250+ pager a one-hour read) centers around Dee Dee Ramone and his talking dog, as they score drugs and violently torture and kill just about all the residents in the Chelsea Hotel.

The book is one long freaky and disgusting hallucination, and could be used as a lesson for kids to not do drugs. People turn into demons, cockroaches crawl around by the millions, eyeballs go flying, Satan worshippers toss junkies into piranha-filled bathtubs, and Sid Vicious and Johnny Thunders haunt Dee Dee like junkie Obe-Wans. It's not a good book by any means - thematically or grammatically - but it's by Dee Dee so it's still pretty amusing (sort of like his horrendous yet ironically cool rap album).

If you bother wading through all the gore, but you get some insight into his feelings toward his mother and wife, the fame of being a Ramone, and his love-hate relationship with the 70's rockstar/addict life. The last page is probably the best - Dee Dee injecting his last hit into his skull while singing "Chinese Rocks" with Sid Vicious, Johnny Thunders, Jerry Nolan, and Stiv Bators as he slips down into Hell where the rest of the original Ramones lineup awaits.

In the end, it's easy to begin to empathize with Dee Dee (although that's what he wants). ...you sort of hope he'll figure himself out someday, preferably before he OD's like his other angels and demons.