Inside the pages of 50 Rooms, Jason Allan Cole presents eleven stories of people living on the edge in the neighborhood around an abandoned Hollywood hotel. Most of the characters are young, living unfulfilled lives. There's Lance Turner, the Hollywood stuntman, and his latest girlfriend who both become victims of their own desperation. There's the homicidal midget at the convenience store who only wanted to end his shift and get drunk, until someone pushed him too far. And there are many more characters and their stories. Threaded through these other lives are the tales of two punk rockers who just want to find a place to keep getting high.

The stories are raw and disturbing and most often depressing. However, they show Jason Allan Cole's ability to condense a moment in time and distill character into a few pages of action and dialogue. 50 Rooms is a remarkable work about the underbelly of LA by a skilled new literary talent.