Richard Hell

Richard Hell was born and grew up in Lexington, Kentucky, but dropped out of high school and moved alone to New York at the age of seventeen. He first came to public attention in the mid-1970s as an originator of punk. In 1984 he retired from music and returned to his original ambition of writing books. He is the author of several works of fiction, poetry, essays, notebooks, and autobiography, including The Voidoid, Across the Years, Artifact, Go Now, Hot and Cold, I Dreamed I Was a Very Clean Tramp, Massive Pissed Love, and What Just Happened, as well as co-author of book-length collaborations, including the collection of poems Wanna Go Out? (published under the heteronym Theresa Stern) with the musician Tom Verlaine and the image-texts of Psychopts with the artist Christopher Wool.

  • Godlike
    Godlike
    Godlike Richard Hell
    Publication Date: Feb 10, 2026

  • Shopping for someone else but not sure what to give them? Give them the gift of choice with a New York Review Books Gift Card.

    Gift Cards 

  • A membership for yourself or as a gift for a special reader will promise a year of good reading.

    Join NYRB Classics Book Club 

  • Is there a book that you’d like to see back in print, or that you think we should consider for one of our series? Let us know!

    Tell us about it