"John Jason Phillips, the creator of the murals at The Grubstake diner at 1525 Pine Street in San Francisco, will bring another aspect of his creative life forward at the restaurant tonight (September 11, 2025) at 7 pm when he will premiere and read from his three new novels: The Last Days of the Barbary Coast, Queen of the Mission, and Queen of Mystery."
"Moonlight streamed through the window of Casey's upstairs office in the house on Potrero Hill. Beside him, the wastebasket was nearly full of crumpled pages, false starts at his attempt to chronicle the amazingly horrifying events he was trying to turn into a novel. Crowding him on the desk were pages of notes, photos, and notebooks full of items detailing those events; even copies of the horrific drawings of red-haired women being tortured that he had found in his cab."
John Jason Phillips will premiere and read three novels tonight at The Grubstake in San Francisco: The Last Days of the Barbary Coast, Queen of the Mission, and Queen of Mystery. The novels are set in early 1980s San Francisco and fictionalize experiences from driving a cab. Excerpts reveal a protagonist named Casey struggling to write about horrifying events, surrounded by crumpled pages, notes, photos, and notebooks. Disturbing drawings of red-haired women tortured and found in a taxi served as a catalyst to end the Red Hair Killer murder spree. The opening scene emphasizes atmosphere, isolation, and creative frustration.
Read at San Francisco Bay Times
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]