Yes, that's right, this insane novel is written by the late, great Dee Dee Ramone, and although Chelsea Horror Hotel may not be a literary milestone, it is an entertaining and bizarre read. After all, Dee Dee is one of the originators of punk rock who gave us such inane songs as "Cretin Hop," "Teenage Lobotomy," and "Chain Saw," an ode to that legendary cinema masterpiece Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Sure, this book is a trifle chaotic and incoherent at times, leaving the reader wondering what's going on, but it's all in good fun.

In any case, in this novel set in the late 1990s, Dee Dee Ramone casts himself as the tough protagonist for whom things never go right. At this point in his life not much fazes Dee Dee, so when he gets spooked, things must be bad. As if living in the seedy Chelsea Hotel isn't harrowing enough with its huge cockroach population, surly staff, and all the social miscreants residing there as well, now he is tormented by ghosts, a demonic cult in the hotel's basement, and strange supernatural occurrences like meeting Sid Vicious, who died in 1979, in a bathroom stall in Penn Station. Likewise, some of the residents of the hotel, including Dee Dee's wife, are being possessed by demonic forces. Inevitably, violence, lunacy, and sheer mayhem ensue.

Things come to a climax when Dee Dee, who is so hard up for a fix, decides to go to the basement and try to cop off of the Satanic cult. He is coerced to play with the S.K.U.L.L.S., a band comprised of dead punk icons and old friends Johnny Thunders, Sid Vicious, Jerry Nolan, and Stiv Bators. The circumstances and the dialogue are quite comical, but all the same, the result is apocalyptic. And now, after his recent, untimely death, this novel and especially the denouement seems almost prophetic and painfully affecting. One can't help but wonder if Dee Dee has met up with his friends and is jamming somewhere out there in the unknown that is the afterlife.