"Pier 45 is a powerful, moving, important novel. A blend of The Basketball Diaries, Angels in America, and Requiem for a Dream, Scott Alderman has written a brutal, honest story that is not without humor and hope. 10/10." -Richard Thomas, Bram Stoker, Shirley Jackson, and Thriller Award finalist"An impactful, unforgettable read" -Independent Book ReviewWhen a drag queen rescues a brutalized teenage hustler in 1981 New York City, it ignites a decade-long saga of prostitution, heroin, AIDS, murder, and supernatural reckoning-told by a child of Holocaust survivors who carries the dead on his tattooed arm and is learning that just surviving isn't always enough. "Scott Alderman gives us an intimate rendering of young life in desperate times, telling his story with compassion, dark humor, and wild imagination." -Vivian Heller, author of Analysis and Exile: Boyhood, Loss and the Lessons of Anna Freud