Adam Parfrey (April 12, 1957 – May 10, 2018) was an American journalist, editor, and the publisher of Feral House books,[1] whose work in all three capacities frequently centered on unusual, extreme, or "forbidden" topics.

And in many cases—at least back when his interests were almost exclusively transgressive—he sheds light on subjects that society prefers to leave unexplored, carving a niche catering to those of us with an unseemly obsession with life's darkest, most depraved sides.

After graduating high school, he attended the University of California, Santa Cruz,[2] and UCLA, before dropping out[1] to move to San Francisco, where he began a short-lived experimental magazine, IDEA.

[citation needed] That year, Parfrey moved east to Hoboken, New Jersey, and began working at New York City's Strand Bookstore.

In 1984, with Kim Seltzer and Strand co-worker George Petros, Parfrey launched EXIT magazine; he collaborated on three of the six published issues before leaving the publication in 1987.

Amok Press's first title was an English translation by Joachim Neugroschel of the Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels's novel Michael (1929), which was reviewed in the New York Times and The New Republic.

[1] In total, Amok Press published eight books, including You Can't Win, by Jack Black, The Grand Guignol: Theatre of Fear and Terror, by Mel Gordon,[4] and Boxcar Bertha: An Autobiography, As Told to Dr. Ben L.

[12] He publicly maintained that he didn't necessarily agree with the viewpoints he published, telling one interviewer in 1995, “Everything the establishment extols as comfortable and right and good makes me sick.”[13] In the 1980s he also corresponded with James Mason and other neo-Nazis.