Hero of the Underground A Memoir [Paperback]

Hero of the Undergroundis the rivetingNew York Timesbestseller.

I wasn't afraid of death.

How could I be? I lived under death's shadow every day. When you swallow sixty Vicodin, twenty sleeping pills, drink a bottle of vodka, and still survive, a certain sense of invulnerability stays with you.

When you continually use drugs with the kind of reckless determination that I did, the limit to how much heroin or crack you can ingest is not defined by dollar amounts but by the amounts your body can withstand without experiencing a seizure or respiratory failure. . . .

I found myself contemplating death again. Only this time I wasn't going to leave it to chance. I was going to buy a gun, load the thing, place the barrel in my mouth, and blow my fucking brains out.

And all

of my problems

would be

solved.
Had Hunter Thompson been a football player instead of a fan, this is the book he'd have written. Flat-out, mash-your-face-in-the-dirt amazing. Jerry Stahl, author ofPermanent Midnight

JASON PETER grew up in Middletown, New Jersey. He was an All American and a member of three National Championship football teams at the University of Nebraska, co-captaining the championship team. He was also a National Football League first-round draft pick by the Carolina Panthers, where he played for four years before injuries forced him to retire. He is now married and lives in Lincoln, Nebraska, where he co-hosts a sports radio program,The Spread,for ESPN.

TONY O'NEILL is a poet and novelist whose books includeDown and Out on Murder MileandDigging the Vein. He lives in New York.

Riveting . . . the first page took me to the top of a roller coaster and dropped me straight down. Peter King, SportsIllustrated.com

Compelling brutality . . . it's nasty. And well worth the read. ESPN.com