The Junket (Kindle Single) [Kindle Edition]

Mike Albo (Author)

Book Description

From author and performer Mike Albo comes this hilarious, harrowing and totally fictional novella about a struggling freelance writer living in New York City named Mike Albo. He lands an enviable gig writing about shopping and fashion for the city’s major newspaper, but an ill-fated promotional junket gets Albo into hot water. He becomes a gossip item and finds himself caught in an acrimonious war between Old and New Media. Here's a gimlet-eyed account of the back-biting media scene, a glimpse into the inner workings of the fashion crowd, and a candid portrait of what it takes to survive as a writer in today’s chattering and watchful New York City.

"I was perilously close to exposing a secret underground economy of promotion: favors and junkets and banquets and gifts that keeps the city in motion, and keeps underpaid writers at work. Basically, I became the Silkwood of Swag."

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Writers are notoriously poor assessors of their own work. But in the case of The Junket, Mike Albo does a stand-up job. So what is The Junket? On the one hand, it's "a memoir with a fictional $3,000 sheer Thai silk veil lightly draped over it." On the other, it's about "the plight of the freelance writer in our compromised economy." Finally, it's about the author's "long-term relationship with the most exciting but unreliable boyfriend of all: New York City." Kudos to Albo for such a revealing take on his own work, but he left out a few things. In tracing the story of his fall from grace at a very high-profile and coyly euphemized "New York Paper," The Junket is also charming, charismatic, and very funny. Albo is an unapologetic artsy-fartsy type, resolved to make ends meet by writing a lot of shill for high-end products he can't afford. But when the culture of freebies that permeates his chosen field catches up with him, readers win out. Go ahead: laugh at his expense. --Jason Kirk

Product Details

• File Size: 136 KB
• Print Length: 41 pages
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B005FR8MF8
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• X-Ray: Enabled
• Lending: Enabled
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #121,774 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
  • #20 in Kindle Store > Kindle Singles > Humor
  • #45 in Kindle Store > Kindle Singles > Memoirs
  • #76 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Humor & Entertainment > Pop Culture

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The New Economy, Which Will Make A Freelancer of Us All August 12, 2011

By Alexander Chee

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

This is one of the best stories I can think of about how our culture has changed, what is driving it, and where it is all taking us. I loved this, deeply loved this. Mike Albo was turned into, as he puts it, "The Silkwood of Swag". He was offered up as a scapegoat at the Times for a culture that relies on freebies sneaking off through the system in order for the writers to (barely) survive and, it should be said, for the companies to get column inches, and, in a way, for the paper that says it eschews such things to survive as well. What he's done with that experience is so funny and smart, and bigger than the NYT thing---it's about the sad horrible ways the whole rigged media ad game works. Also, it's dishy as hell. Now hit that "buy" button and enjoy.

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Hanging out and trying to hang on in the big city August 8, 2011

By Rett01 TOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

"The Junket" by Mike Albo seems to be a fictionalized account of a "freelance greasemonkey" New Yorker named Mike Albo who accepts some swag, jets off on a promotional junket to Jamaica and then gets outted for sloppy ethics by a media blogger and as a result loses his reporting gig at a big, big mainstream "New York Newspaper."

It's new media versus old and Albo (real or fictional) gets the heave-ho. And maybe rather than being a work of fiction, the whole thing happened just as it's presented. Or maybe the truth is somewhere in between.

In his account, Albo isn't whining or defending his breach of the "New York Newspaper's" ethics code. His story is in a way wistful, "Basically I became the Silkwood of Swag."

Reading his story is bemusing in the way Woody Allen used to bemuse "New Yorker" readers with his early stories. Albo also is bemusing in a way that is made more enjoyable by being less strident and somehow less biting than David Sedaris.

Besides being humorous and often down-right hilarious, Albo's plight is also revealing and heartfelt for being so self-effacingly honest. His personal ethos may be wanting but his pathos is genuine and genuinely appealing. He knows how to pull the reader in.

"Usually my bank account hovers around $227. I have no savings, no health insurance, no real job, no big commitments, and yesterday I found mouse droppings next to my laptop. I keep waiting for the money - the matching grant - for the constant fundraiser that is my non-profit writer life...."

You can't help but end up with a big heap of empathy for this guy who convinces us he is just trying to eke out a living by doing what he always wanted to do, which is to live in New York City and to write, and after twenty years of trying is not too sure he's ever going to succeed or even make much headway. "Instead of a stable life I am surviving off a trickling IV drip of my aspirations."

Albo wonders if it's time to think about breaking up with his exciting but unreliable boyfriend, which is the way he characterizes New York City. But then he wonders, finally, if in fact it's New York that is trying to break off the relationship with him. "How long am I supposed to believe I can `make it' here?"

You're going get to the end of his story and hope that he manages to work things out in his relationship with the Big Apple and hang on at least for awhile longer. We could all use a few more laughs from this guy. Read more ›

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The Junket August 11, 2011

By Susan Johnston

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

As a freelance writer myself, I could certainly relate to the narrator's plight of being caught between a freelance gig that barely covers his expenses and offers from PR people to taste the kind of lifestyle he writes about. It's an amusing satire on the media world, complete with back-biting bloggers, publications that pay late (if at all), and other characters that will be eerily familiar to anyone who's worked in publishing (even though the names have been changed, we know who you are!). Albo's sharp humor and observations on urban life made me wish the story were even longer.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Hilarious, Sly But Not Bitter Account of a Junket Gone Wrong and The NYC Writing Life August 10, 2011

By Rachel Kramer Bussel VINE™ VOICE

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

Mike Albo would have every reason to be bitter - he agreed to go on a junket that is only very thinly veiled in this piece, that was covered extensively in NYC media sites, which resulted in his losing his column in the paper he refers to here as The New York Paper. Instead, he uses this essay as an opportunity to look back at his life as a writer in New York and the things he's had to do to make a living. What makes this such compelling reading is that Albo uses the humor he brought to The Underminer but he is as much the target of his sharp wit as anyone else, although his other targets certainly come under much-deserved scrutiny.

This particular junket's destination wasn't revealed until they reached their destination. Albo writes, "I wasn't so psyched to go to Jamaica, where gay people are maimed and killed and the prime minister made a special point to declare that LGTB rights would never be recognized, but on the plane the organizers got us all psyched. 'Can you believe it? I can't hear you! Jamiaca! Woooo!'"

He weaves in the story of the junket with his various jobs in Manhattan media, from working at "the Death Star for magazines but gayer" and learning not only how to cover high fashion, but how to covet it. Ultimately, this is a story that would make perfect reading for anyone considering writing as a profession, because Albo shows that even at the highest levels, at the pinnacle--and his description of not only what he did at The New York Paper but how it felt, as well as his continuing reverence, though not unreserved, for it, is one of the high points of this piece--it is still a struggle to survive....

Albo juxtaposes all the swag his colleagues received at various other magazines as well as his efforts to make the right decision about the junket with the outcome, in which The Paper first absolved him of wrongdoing, then changed its mind once it came under more minute scrutiny. But whether or not you agree with their decision, this piece has plenty of other merits, because Albo is not using it to settle a score or argue that he was in the right. In fact, he never points fingers, or this would read much differently and more as a way to settle a score than to explore why it is that he writes.

He concludes with a question about New York City that I think almost anyone who's lived here has been forced to ask themselves: is it worth it? "I have forgone something lasting to continue my long-term relationship with the most exciting but unreliable boyfriend of all--New York City. Maybe it's time to break up with it, to emancipate myself from the teasing, taunting, sexy metropolis that has kept me within its grip my entire adult life. But how do I break up with a city? How long am I supposed to believe I can 'make it' here? Or does none of it matter because it's all about advertising?" Once again, my biggest takeaway was how much Albo wants to write, and will go to whatever lengths he can to do it, not for the money per se, but for the expression. What you think that expression is worth is what's explored here, but I can safely say this essay is worth the $1.99.

And when you're done with it, I highly recommend my favorite piece of his: a tribute to a Katell Keinig concert that will wipe the idea of swag or writing about cravats right out of your mind, because it's so beautiful (in Sean Manning's anthology The Show I'll Never Forget). Read more ›

1.0 out of 5 stars I don't think I have this on my Kindle February 14, 2013

By Dorothy Shoe

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

I don't have this on my Kindle. I don't know if I got it, and then maybe accidently deleted it.

2 of 4 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars So grateful to Amazon for uncovering this new talent! August 18, 2011

By Barbara

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

I agree so heartily with the other reviewers who praise this work that I hesitate to add my own kudos, but 6 reviews is not enough to set this wonderful work rolling. I never would have discovered this book if someone at Amazon hadn't pushed it as a Kindle single, and it was everything I hoped it would be and more. I'm a suburban grandmother who's never been paid to publish a single word, yet I found in Albo's scantily fictionalized gay, single, urban freelancer a deeply kindred soul, and one I found myself cheering on and hoping to hear from again, and soon.

More About the Author

Hi there interested person:

I am a writer and performer living and loving in Brooklyn. My first novel, HORNITO: MY LIE LIFE, was published by HarperCollins in October 2000. My second novel, THE UNDERMINER (co-written with Virginia Heffernan) was published by Bloomsbury USA in 2005. Now I am releasing THE JUNKET exclusively on Kindle for your pleasure. Check me out on mikealbo.com, on Twitter at "albomike" or on FaceBook...Below is a more extensive bio written in the 3rd person as if I had nothing to do with its creation:


Mike Albo has written for the New York Times, The New Yorker, New York Magazine, GQ, Elle Décor, Country Living, The Daily Beast, Out, The Village Voice, Details, and many other magazines and websites. He was a Senior Editor and Fashion Writer for Cargo Magazine from 2004-2006.

Albo wrote The Critical Shopper column for the New York Times from February 2007-October 2009. He has also had columns in Blackbook and Surface magazines, and wrote "Torascopes" for Heeb Magazine from 2005-2007. His love advice column in Out Magazine, "What's Your Problem?" appeared from 1998-2000. He also wrote horoscopes for Word.com (Horoscopes by Randy Lavender), from 1998-2000.

His fiction and essays have appeared in many anthologies, including The Worst Noel, Girls Who Love Boys Who Love Boys, Rejected and The Show I'll Never Forget. Selections of his "Junk Mail" poetry have appeared in the Tin House.

As a monologist and comedian, Albo has completed four critically acclaimed, sold-out solo shows: MIKE ALBO, SPRAY, PLEASE EVERYTHING BURST and MY PRICE POINT, as well as many solo performances and tours across the United States and Europe. Fast-paced, hilarious, highly emotional and punctuated with dance, his performances have been praised in many publications including The New Yorker, The New York Times, Paper, Time Out, The Independent in London, The Boston Globe, the Pittsburgh Tribune, and the LA Times.

Selections of his work appear in EXTREME EXPOSURE: An Anthology Of Solo Performance Texts From The Twentieth Century (ed. by Jo Bonney). MY PRICE POINT won the award for Best Solo Performance by Independent Reviewers of New England in 2006.