Up and Down on the Downtown Eastside

As gentrification closes in on Canada’s poorest postal code, rival factions battle for control of the lucrative drug trade, plunging the neighbourhood into chaos. Politically charged yet darkly comic, Up and Down on the Downtown Eastside is sure to both horrify and delight.

Up and Down on the Downtown Eastside is a fast-paced but harsh story involving drug addicts and other low income residents in the ghetto that is Vancouver's drug-ravaged Downtown Eastside. Fans of Irvine Welsh and Hunter S Thompson will appreciate the non-stop black humour that prevents the book from being dragged down by the bleakness and intensity of the subject matter. Although highly entertaining, this novel, like all of Walter's work, is not for the easily offended or weak of heart.

Chris Walter, a recovering drug addict and hope-to-die punk rocker, began writing purposefully in 1998 after realizing that his life up to that point had been meaningless. With help from his girlfriend who worked at a printing shop, he started Gofuckyerself Press and began to write and distribute a series of punk fiction novels. His first published work, Punk Rules OK (Burn Books, 2002) went largely unnoticed except by detractors, inspiring him to return to pirate-style DIY operations. Gofuckyerself Press then expanded to include unschooled troublemakers Simon Snotface, Stewart Black, and Australian Drew Gates, drawing further criticism from the established literary industry. To date GFY Press has published twenty one titles including Chris' latest music biography, Argh Fuck Kill: The Story of the DayGlo Abortions.