Tabloid City
Page 27
—Sherryl Connelly, New York Daily News
“The story unfolds in time-stamped, you-are-there bursts that follow a large cast, including several journalists…. Hamill is at his best in the [newspaper editor] portions, rich in print anecdotes and mournful for a passing age…. Hamill nails the dying newsroom.”
—Publishers Weekly
“A large and lively cast…. provides Pete Hamill with an excellent vantage point from which to comment on—and lament over—his beloved city…. If you love New York, or journalism, you’ll love this book. And if (like me) you love both, you may not be able to put it down until you’ve finished.”
—John Greenya, Washington Times
“Pete Hamill’s engrossing new novel about a New York daily newspaper, its offices, and its editors and writers may seem like historical fiction. For readers who have been around a while, the book will in part read like a eulogy for good news sheets past. Everyone who stays with the book—which I recommend they do—will certainly regard it as a gritty tone-poem in prose on New York City life—and death. You’ll find the former on every page, depicted in Hamill’s enlivening plain style, while the latter—in the form of a double murder—plays a pivotal role in the development of his plot. The killings link a number of major characters in Hamill’s kaleidoscopic, almost hour-by-hour unfolding of nearly 24 hours of a day both typical and distinctive in contemporary Manhattan…. I found the characters so appealing…. He certainly is a good novelist, awfully good, in fact, writing, as he seems to be doing, in the literary tradition of John Dos Passos’s epoch-making Manhattan Transfer, and making a plausible contribution of his own.”
—Alan Cheuse, San Francisco Chronicle
“Tabloid City teems with life. People die in ugly ways in this riveting crime novel, but it’s also concerned with another death: the shutdown of a daily newspaper. At the same time, the book is a gritty, cynical but heartfelt love song to New York City, in days gone by and right this minute. Pete Hamill writes with authority on life in the newsroom…. [He] does a masterful job of structuring the novel, gradually revealing connections among all those people and building suspense as the body count mounts. The entire tale takes place in less than 24 hours, with the pressure of all sorts of deadlines adding to its urgency. He’s also adept at the telling detail, the kind that gives us a character in a couple of sentences…. As a thriller, Tabloid City works beautifully. But it’s just as much a fond farewell to an era of journalism that’s passing fast, with an eye toward its uncertain future.”
—Colette Bancroft, St. Petersburg Times
“[An] ambitious literary crime tale…. Veteran journalist and novelist Hamill serves up a distinctive take on the naked city with his eleventh novel. At its core, it is a lament for the ever-changing metropolis that eight million call home, a mournful love letter to the dying newspaper biz, and a tribute to the newshounds who hoof the pavement every day hungry to break a story and make their deadlines before dawn…. What makes Tabloid City extraordinary is its author’s clear-eyed observations of characters who know that their narratives are coming to an end, but who refuse to fade away quietly. He displays impressive skill binding it all together with prose that treads deftly between poetry and hard-boiled clarity. Pain, regret, and melancholy permeate the various story lines, but Hamill manages to generate compassion as well. The city may be stitched together with heartbreak, but there are also moments of tenderness and joy that resonate just as strongly…. Tabloid City will engage the crime reader who seeks a complex, thoughtful approach to noir.”
—Derek Hill, Mystery Scene
“Erstwhile newspaperman Hamill writes what he knows—New York City…. The fast-paced story travels from the Upper East Side to the Chelsea Hotel to a Brooklyn tenement and more, with an NYPD detective and an ambitious reporter as guides.”
—Billy Heller, New York Post
“The author handles his large cast with patience and clarity, and the city is well realized, as you’d expect from Hamill, himself a New York institution who has served as editor-in-chief of both of the [fictional] World’s very real rivals…. As with any reliable tabloid, there’s always another good story on the next page.”
—Allison Williams, Time Out New York
Contents
Welcome
Dedication
Epigraph
Night
Day
Night
About the Author
Reading Group Guide
A conversation with Pete Hamill
Questions and topics for discussion
Also by Pete Hamill
Praise for Pete Hamill’s Tabloid City
Copyright
Copyright
The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Copyright © 2012 by Deirdre Enterprises, Inc.
Reading group guide copyright © 2012 by Deirdre Enterprises, Inc., and Little, Brown and Company
“The Way Pete Hamill Sees It, Writing Is Writing” used by permission of inReads.com
Cover design by Julianna Lee, cover photograph by Scott Nobles
Cover copyright © 2011 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at permissions@hbgusa.com. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
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First e-book edition: May 2011
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The author is grateful for permission to reprint the excerpt from “The Tunnel,” from Complete Poems of Hart Crane by Hart Crane, edited by Marc Simon. Copyright 1933, 1958, 1966 by Liveright Publishing Corporation. Copyright © 1986 by Marc Simon. Used by permission of Liveright Publishing Corporation.
ISBN 978-0-316-17492-3