Review: Tabloid City by Pete Hamill

Tabloid City
Author: Pete Hamill
Published: May 5, 2011
Genre: fiction
Hardcover: 288 pages
Source: borrowed from the library


My Rating: 4 stars


Synopsis (from GoodReads): If a budding Hollywood director were searching for the archetypal New York City journalist, he or she could find no better model than Pete Hamill. A veteran beat writer and columnist, a former editor-in-chief of both The New York Post and The New York Daily News, Hamill knows what it means to chase down a front-page story or to confront a stop-the-presses editorial decision. In the case of his new Tabloid City, the headline grabber is the murder of a socialite and her personal secretary at a stylish Manhattan town house. This ambitious ensemble novel takes us into late night city newsroom deadlines and the nest of a terrorist plotting destruction.


My Thoughts: Pete Hamill is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors and this novel is another reason why I love his writing so much. While unlike his other books that I have read (Snow in August and Forever), which are set in the past and focus on one person's experience with this magnificent city, Tabloid City is set in the present day, with cell phones, online news companies, and terrorism, and is also told from the perspective of many different people, all ranging in ages and stages in life. The story follows a day in the life of different New Yorkers, from a tabloid editor, an antiterrorism officer, a terrorist, and many others. Each chronicles their lives in short little chapters, but each voice is so distinctive that you can easily tell which character is talking without reading the heading at the beginning of each chapter. 


Hamill's writing is quick and to the point, much like that of newspaper stories. He tunes into each characters' emotions with little build-up. Hamill pulls you into the story immediately and uses his experience as a news reporter, newspaper editor, and New Yorker to craft an engaging story. To me, this story felt like it was told in all one breathe because it's so fast-paced. When I finished the novel, it felt as if I had been holding my breathe, as I took in so many different parts of a typical New York day.


If you haven't read any of Hamill's work, then what are you waiting for?!? He is such a gifted writer and I feel like his writing can appeal to a wide audience. Whether you are looking for a work of fiction, a story about New York, or how one event can affect so many people, then this novel will appeal to you.