- Hardcover: 288 pages
- Publisher: Little, Brown and Company; 1 edition (May 5 2011)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0316020753
- ISBN-13: 978-0316020756
- Product Dimensions: 16.5 x 2.5 x 24.8 cm
- Shipping Weight: 476 g
- Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #317,853 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
Review
PRAISE FOR NORTH RIVER:
"Lovely, richly textured....Is there another living writer with as firm a grasp on the city's sidewalks, its buildings, its history?" (Cleveland Plain Dealer Scott Stephens )
"Hamill's love story casts an engaging spell, and Manhattan-lovers will delight in the gritty particulars." (Entertainment Weekly Tanner Stransky )
"North River seduces us with the author's sweetly convinced nostalgia for his city....Hamill's a smart guy and a fluent writer, and few people have written quite so beautifully about New York as he has." (Los Angeles Times Tim Rutten )
"Hamill has crafted a beautiful novel, rich in New York City detail and ambience, that showcases the power of human goodness and how love, in its many forms, can prevail in an unfair world." (Publishers Weekly (starred review) )
"Lovely, richly textured....Is there another living writer with as firm a grasp on the city's sidewalks, its buildings, its history?" (Cleveland Plain Dealer Scott Stephens )
"Hamill's love story casts an engaging spell, and Manhattan-lovers will delight in the gritty particulars." (Entertainment Weekly Tanner Stransky )
"North River seduces us with the author's sweetly convinced nostalgia for his city....Hamill's a smart guy and a fluent writer, and few people have written quite so beautifully about New York as he has." (Los Angeles Times Tim Rutten )
"Hamill has crafted a beautiful novel, rich in New York City detail and ambience, that showcases the power of human goodness and how love, in its many forms, can prevail in an unfair world." (Publishers Weekly (starred review) )
Product Description
In a stately West Village town house, a wealthy socialite and her secretary are murdered. In the 24 hours that follow, a flurry of activity surrounds their shocking deaths:
The head of one of the city's last tabloids stops the presses. A cop investigates the killing. A reporter chases the story. A disgraced hedge fund manager flees the country. An Iraq War vet seeks revenge. And an angry young extremist plots a major catastrophe.
The City is many things: a proving ground, a decadent carnival, or a palimpsest of memories--a historic metropolis eclipsed by modern times. As much a thriller as it is a gripping portrait of the city of today, Tabloid City is a new fiction classic from the writer who has captured New York perfectly for decades.
The head of one of the city's last tabloids stops the presses. A cop investigates the killing. A reporter chases the story. A disgraced hedge fund manager flees the country. An Iraq War vet seeks revenge. And an angry young extremist plots a major catastrophe.
The City is many things: a proving ground, a decadent carnival, or a palimpsest of memories--a historic metropolis eclipsed by modern times. As much a thriller as it is a gripping portrait of the city of today, Tabloid City is a new fiction classic from the writer who has captured New York perfectly for decades.
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Customer Reviews
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Most helpful customer reviews
2.0 out of 5 stars
A Sad Lament,
By
This review is from: Tabloid City: A Novel (Hardcover)
I am a big fan of Pete Hamill especially his novel Forever and his appearances in Rick Burns' documentary on New York. Hamill's love of his city is undeniable and so too is the lament he provides for the newspaper business which is no longer what it used to be. In Tabloid City, the New York World newspaper is actually one of the strongest characters in the novel. It is the sentimental aspects of the book that resonate the most: old manhattan haunts, the newsroom, and the city's contribution to culture. However, the plot just does not hold together as it attempts to make sense of the biggest issues of the past decade. It explores the financial meltdown, online and digital journalism, and the war on terror. A double murder acts as the thread throughout.Hamill appears enamored with the way things once were but fails to recognize in these pages that change is inevitable. Yet, the more things change...well, you know the rest. I am sure the twenty-somethings of today in New York will harken back to the good old days of the 00's in the coming decades. I can only hope that as someone who spends a great deal of time in NYC that P.J. Clarke's, Veselka's, and The Oyster Bar all stick around so I will continue to enjoy unbelievable chicken pot pie, copious amounts of pierogi, and fried oysters in the greatest city I have ever experienced. In fact, I send Mr. Hamill an open invitation to join me at any of these places for a bite and an open liquor tab just so I can hear more about this great city.
2.0 out of 5 stars
"Disjointed", sort of like...,
By
This review is from: Tabloid City: A Novel (Hardcover)
...the New York City Pete Hamill writes about in his novel, "Tabloid City".Hamill's cast of characters in "Tabloid City" sort of reminded me of a WW2 foxhole movie. One Hispanic, one Italian, one Jew, one Irishman, a WASP, and one or two of other ethnics who make up today's New York City. Throw in a print newspaper going the way they're going all over the country, a nasty murder of a WASP and a black in Greenwich Village, a Bernie Madoff-like character (Irish) on the lam from prosecution by the Feds, a would-be terrorist (Black) trying to come to terms with his life, and you have a 24-hour period in today's New York City. And those are just a sampling of the characters and plot lines in "Tabloid City". I felt I was battling off "in-coming" from the barrage of characters and plot. That's not a good feeling for a reader to have, in my mind. Does Hamill bring it together in the end. Yeah, sorta, but I think it would have been a better book with fewer characters and a more developed plot. Am I an idiot? Can I not deal with a lot of characters? Dunno - I understood and got through "War and Peace" pretty well. But "Tabloid City" is not "War and Peace" and Pete Hamill isn't Leo Tolstoy. (Who is, actually?) If you're a Pete Hamill fan - and I have enjoyed some of his previous books like "Forever" - have at this book and enjoy it. If you've other books on your TBR shelf, you might want to bring down one of those instead.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
3.2 out of 5 stars (32 customer reviews) 16 of 18 people found the following review helpful
2.0 out of 5 stars
Sam Briscoe redux,
By mj deneen "avid windy city reader" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Tabloid City: A Novel (Hardcover)
My first encounter with the hero Sam Briscoe was in the 70's with Flesh & Blood. I have missed out on his other adventures, but recently read Tabloid City. Hamill loves NYC, loves the newspaper business and has an eye for creating interesting portraits. Sadly he forgot how to construct a reason for all of this to exist- I spent the last pages wishing for a reason to want to read more- it never happened. Still this work merits a read if you have a hankering for the days of the New York World or Herald Tribune. Not sure if this a a farewell or the work that was promised on an existing contract .Save for a train or plane trip & you will not be disappointed. 15 of 18 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
A New York novel!,
By M. Lapus "@ Starting Fresh blog" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Tabloid City: A Novel (Hardcover)
A violent crime draws together a cast of characters that find themselves interconnected in other ways. The crime, the intertwined social network, and these unusual characters give us an unsentimental picture of New York during the recession. We meet:* Lew Forrest of the Chelsea Hotel in Manhattan, an aging and successful painter who has lost his sight. His closest companion is Camus, a black labrador; * Cynthia Harding of Greenwich Village, a socialite particularly committed to the New York City libraries and literacy. Her longtime lover is Sam Briscoe of the New York World; * Sandra Gordon, whose precociousness at a dinner party in Jamaica drew the attention, sympathy, and mentorship of Cynthia Harding. From children's books to a passport and education, Cynthia helped Sandra find her place; * Sam Briscoe, the editor of New York World, the last afternoon newspaper in New York and a fixture in journalism circles; * Bobby Fonseca, a young journalist, who lives and breathes his work; * Ali Watson of Fort Greene, Brooklyn, a New York City homicide detective; * Malik Shahid, a young New Yorker turned religious fanatic/fundamentalist; * Josh Thompson, a veteran from the wars in the Middle East who has lost his home and his family and is on the streets of New York; * Beverly Starr, an artist from Gowanus, Brooklyn; * Consuelo Mendoza, an illegal immigrant from Mexico living in Sunset Park, Brooklyn; and * Myles Compton, a hedgefund manager whose bad investments and shady dealings lead him to abscond in the night. While each of the personalities are carefully constructed, I was particularly drawn to the women who are given central roles in the novel. Sandra Gordon is a secondary character but her strength, independence and vulnerability all come across so clearly. The interaction between the aging and nearly blind painter Lew Forrest and his long lost muse, Consuelo Mendoza is particularly touching. Even the socialite Cynthia Harding who only appears briefly is complex and fleshed out. Through a high profile murder and its aftermath, Tabloid City gives a fascinating and unsentimental glimpse of today's New York. ISBN-10: 0316020753 - Hardcover Publisher: Little, Brown and Company (May 5, 2011), 288 pages. Review copy provided by the publisher. 8 of 9 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Man in LOve,
By R. BULL "a reader" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Tabloid City: A Novel (Hardcover)
Pete Hamill is a man in love. In love with the city of New York and the dying art of newspaper journalism. He know both with all their flaws and writes about both with lyrical prose, verging on poetry. I slowed down in reading this to savor the words and stay with the characters as long as I could.
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