Starve the Vulture

A "compelling" memoir of self-destruction, recovery, and redemption from a four-time National Poetry Slam finalist (Booklist).

This mesmerizing memoir recounts Jason Carney's twisting journey as he overcomes his own racism, homophobia, drug addiction, and harrowing brushes with death to find redemption and unlikely fame on the national performance poetry circuit. Woven into Carney's path to recovery is a powerful family story, depicting the roots of prejudice and dysfunction through several generations.


"Before he was a sex-addict-crackhead-boozer-porn-salesman sliding downward in the Dallas demimonde, Jason Carney was a poet, a lowlife who prized his thesaurus as much as his speed pipe...He made it out, and Starve the Vulture tells how he did it, how poetic ecstasy trumped sordid pleasure. Brisk, electric, and moving, his story recalls both Baudelaire's Intimate Journals and Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress."—J. Michael Lennon, author of Norman Mailer: A Double Life

"It seems impossible to me that a reader could fail to be gripped by Carney's straightforward, vulnerable voice, which is able to imbue the harrowing events of his life with beauty, humor, and deep meaning."—Hippocampus Magazine

"Carney will easily win sympathy for his life, in which he has persevered to show others the hard work of his salvation."—Kirkus Reviews