If Rob Lowe’s memoir is the biggest, best issue of Tiger Beat ever, then Gavin Edward’s Last Night at the Viper Room: River Phoenix and the Hollywood He Left Behind is the saddest.

River Phoenix was a beautiful, doomed neo-hippie with a heart full of music, hopes of saving the world, and a hardcore drug habit he was intent on hiding. It’s hard to believe it’s been twenty years since the twenty-three-year old actor died outside of the Johnny Depp-owned Hollywood club, The Viper Room, but there you have it. Read more.