The Novel
"I happened when you saw me."
“A novel about obsession, collapse, and the people who break you—beautifully and devastatingly.”
The Story
All Nights Die Young is a cinematic descent into love, addiction, and identity... set against the glittering, unforgiving pulse of New York City.
It follows Lincoln, a naive young man who falls under the spell of a mysterious stranger—a man whose glacial beauty hides a devastating truth. But fascination turns into entrapment as Lincoln is pulled into a web of addiction. Lost in New York’s toxic nightlife, he spirals through desire, dependency, and self-destruction, where each night promises transcendence, but every dawn brings ruin. A love letter to the lonely, the lost, and those chasing the unattainable.
This isn’t just a love story. It’s about the people who undo you—beautifully and devastatingly.
"LUXXOR'S NOVEL IS A TRAGEDY TURNED UP TO THE HIGHEST VOLUME... A RAW HAUNTING JOURNEY OF LOVE, IDENTITY AND SELF-DESTRUCTION... A WEB OF TRANSGRESSIONS."
Kirkus Reviews
Q&A • Behind the Story
Get closer to the core of the book through ten questions that reveal the original vision.
Q1: Why this story and no other?
Mario Luxxor: I originally wanted to tell the story of a young man who falls in love with his rapist. But when I pitched it, most people couldn’t connect with it. I still believe it’s a powerful and necessary narrative — one that explores the complexity of trauma and love — but I knew I had to pivot. All Nights Die Young grew from that early idea. It became something just as daring, still rooted in trauma, desire, and survival… just told through a different lens.
Q2: What inspired
All Nights Die Young?
Mario Luxxor: Real life. When I first arrived in the U.S., I was thrown into a world where nightlife and fantasy blurred the lines of reality. Drugs, desire, connection—all of it created a world that felt more honest than sobriety ever did. I saw people fall in love in the middle of chaos. And I wanted to write about that.
Q3: How long did it take you to write this novel?
Mario Luxxor: Six years. It started as a screenplay. English wasn’t my first language, so turning that script into a novel was both brutal and beautiful. I had to learn how to express what I felt — not just translate the words. That’s when everything changed. That’s when I stopped writing to fill and started writing to feel.
Q4: What message do you
want readers to take away?
Mario Luxxor: That beauty can exist in darkness. That falling is not always failure—it can be transformation. And that sometimes the people who break us are the ones who show us who we really are.
Q5: Who is your favorite character and why?
Mario Luxxor: Derrick and Lincoln. They are me in another lifetime.
Writing them was absurdly painful and cathartic. If I have to chose one, I would go with Lincoln, I wish I could be more like him, but unfortunately, I tend to be more like Derrick.
Q6: Is there a film adaptation in the works?
Mario Luxxor: Yes. The screenplay is ready. That’s how it started, and it’s still the heartbeat of this whole project. I want to direct it myself. The book was my way of building a world so deep that when we shoot it, it feels lived in—like the characters have been waiting for the camera to catch up.
Q7: What was the hardest scene to write?
Mario Luxxor: Definitely the ending. The ending was written in so many versions along the whole five years that the screenplay took to finish. But I do clearly remember when the last scene was finally crafted, I was in Palm Springs at a hotel called The Twist. It was 2 pm.. it was hot outside but cold inside. I shut all the curtains and I turned the room into darkness, and I played Titanic's soundtrack "Rose" by James Horner on repeat. I cried my eyes out while pouring myself out on the last scene... It took me around six hours to finish the ending.
Q8: How much of All Nights Die Young is based on real events?
Over the five years working on what used to be called The Beauty of Falling, I got so
Mario Luxxor: Over the five years working on what used to be called The Beauty of Falling, I received a lot of negative feedback. Each time I added something new—more intensity, more drama—I thought I was making the story better. But the problem wasn’t the plot. It was the narrative itself. I was new, and I believed that more chaos meant more meaning.
Looking back, the storytelling became a collage of my own madness. But the heart of the story—that fragile, beautiful core—it’s always been real. It's still happening, every day, out there in the world.
Q9: Does New York play a role in the novel?
Mario Luxxor: Big time. In the end, Derrick tells RedSaint he’s leaving New York — not because he gave up, but because he finally understood what New York really is. It’s not a city for everyone. It’s a beast. It’ll hand you a dream with one hand and crush you with the other. It doesn’t care who you are. If you’re not ready, it’ll eat you alive.
Q10: If you could sit down with any one of your characters, who would it be? And what would you ask them?
Mario Luxxor: Thar's not gonna happen, they would never sit down with me.