Nick Tosches

Nick Tosches
Born	(1949-10-23)October 23, 1949 Newark, New Jersey, U.S.
Died	October 20, 2019(2019-10-20) (aged 69) Manhattan, New York City, U.S.
Occupation	Biographer, essayist, journalist, novelist, poet
Nationality	American
Website
nicktosches.com

Nicholas P. Tosches (/ˈtɑːʃəs/; October 23, 1949 – October 20, 2019) was an American journalist, novelist, biographer, and poet. His 1982 biography of Jerry Lee Lewis, Hellfire, was praised by Rolling Stone magazine as "the best rock and roll biography ever written."

Biography

Tosches was born in Newark, New Jersey on October 23, 1949. His surname originated from Albanian settlers in Italy, known as Arbëreshë; his grandfather emigrated from the village of Casalvecchio di Puglia to New York City in the late 19th century.

According to his own account, Tosches "barely finished high school". He had a variety of jobs, including working as a porter for his family's business in New Jersey, as a paste-up artist for the Lovable underwear company in New York City, and later, in the early 1970s, as a snake hunter for the Miami Serpentarium, in Florida. A fan of early rock and roll and "oddball" records, he also began writing for rock music magazines, including Creem, Fusion, and Rolling Stone. He was also reviews editor for Country Music magazine. He has been described as "the best example of a good rock journalist who set out to transcend his genre and succeeded," and as someone who "along with Lester Bangs, Richard Meltzer and a handful of other noble notables from the era... elevated rock writing to a new plateau." He was fired by Rolling Stone for collaborating with Meltzer in filing record reviews under each other's byline.

Tosches' first book, Country: The Biggest Music in America (later retitled Country: The Twisted Roots of Rock and Roll), was first published in 1977. It was followed in 1982 by Hellfire, a biography of Jerry Lee Lewis, and in 1984 by Unsung Heroes of Rock 'n' Roll: The Birth of Rock in the Wild Years Before Elvis. He subsequently wrote biographies of the singer and entertainer Dean Martin, the Sicilian financier Michele Sindona, the heavyweight boxer Sonny Liston, the country singer Emmett Miller, and the racketeer Arnold Rothstein.

Tosches worked as a contributing editor of Vanity Fair magazine. His work was also published in Esquire and Open City. He published four novels, Cut Numbers (1988), Trinities (1994), In the Hand of Dante (2002), and Me and the Devil (2012); and a collection of poetry, Chaldea and I Dig Girls (1999). He also worked on Never Trust a Loving God, a book in collaboration with the French painter Thierry Alonso Gravleur, a friend of the writer. He described his literary influences as "Hesiod, Sappho, Christopher Marlowe, Ezra Pound, William Faulkner, Charles Olson, and God knows who else." A compendium, The Nick Tosches Reader, collects writings from over the course of his career.

Tosches was featured on the Travel Channel show Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations in the episode "Disappearing Manhattan", in which he and Bourdain shared a drink at Sophie's in the East Village, a Manhattan dive bar, and discussed the changing nature of the city.

Tosches died on October 20, 2019, at his home in Manhattan, three days before his 70th birthday.

Bibliography

Biographies

• 1982 – Hellfire: The Jerry Lee Lewis Story. New York: Dell Publishing. ISBN 9780440535492.
• 1984 – Unsung Heroes Of Rock 'n' Roll. New York: C. Scribner's Sons. ISBN 9780684181493.
• 1984 – with Hall, Daryl; Oates, John. Dangerous Dances: The Authorized Biography. New York: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 9780312357160. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |last-author-amp= ignored (|name-list-style= suggested) (help)
• 1986 – Power on Earth. New York: Arbor House. ISBN 9780877957966.
• 1992 – Dino: Living High in the Dirty Business of Dreams. New York: Doubleday. 1992. ISBN 9780385262163.
• 2000 – The Devil and Sonny Liston. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. ISBN 9780316897754.
• 2001 – Where Dead Voices Gather. London: Little, Brown and Company. ISBN 9780316895071.
• 2005 – King of the Jews. New York: Ecco. ISBN 9780066211183.

Fiction and poetry

• 1988 – Cut Numbers. New York: Harmony Books. ISBN 9780517568705.
• 1994 – Trinities. New York: Doubleday. ISBN 9780385470032.
• 1999 – Chaldea and I Dig Girls. New York: CUZ Editions. ISBN 9780966632859.
• 2002 – In the Hand of Dante. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. ISBN 9780316735643.
• 2012 – Me and the Devil. New York: Little, Brown and Company. ISBN 9780316120975.
• 2014 – Johnny's First Cigarette. Sénouillac: Vagabonde. ISBN 9782919067138.
• 2015 – Under Tiberius. New York: Little, Brown and Company. ISBN 9780316405652.

Journalism

• Country: The Twisted Roots of Rock 'n' Roll, 1977, Da Capo Press, ISBN 0-306-80713-0
• Unsung Heroes of Rock n' Roll: The Birth of Rock in the Wild Years Before Elvis, 1984 (first edition), Da Capo Press, ISBN 0-306-80891-9
• The Last Opium Den, 2002
• Never Trust a Loving God, Art Stock Books, 2009
• Save the Last Dance for Satan, Kicks Books, 2011

Collections

• The Nick Tosches Reader, 2000, Da Capo Press, ISBN 0-306-80969-9

Interviews

• Raab, Scott (January 2013). "[Interview with] Nick Tosches". Man at His Best. Esquire. 159 (1): 15–18. {{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help)

Discography

• Blue Eyes and Exit Wounds, with Hubert Selby Jr., produced by the author Harold Goldberg, 1998
• Nick & Homer, with Homer Henderson, 1998
• Fuckthelivingfuckthedead, 2001
• For the taking: Vol. I from CHALDEA, with Rick Whitehurst, 2006
• I'm In Love With Your Knees, with Austin Brookner and Lenny Kaye, 2009
• Text Messaging Mama, with Austin Brookner and Homer Henderson, 2011
• Autohagiography, with Austin Brookner, 2018

Film and television appearances

• Louis Prima: The Wildest!, 1999
• Hubert Selby Jr: It/ll Be Better Tomorrow, 2005
• Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride: Hunter S. Thompson on Film, 2006
• Mobsters, in the episode "Tommy Lucchese", 2008
• Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations in the episode "Disappearing Manhattan", 2009

Podcast appearance

WTF with Marc Maron - February 23, 2015

External links

• Brief bio
• Nick Tosches at IMDb
• Rolling Stone
• Vanity Fair