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Welcome to Yesterday [Hardcover]

Ian Spiegelman (Author)
3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)

Price: $23.95 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details
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Book Description

May 17, 2006
"It must have been an amusing scene, me shivering on a doorstep with my face in my hands. I’ll have to be amused by it sometime." --from Welcome to Yesterday

Not since Dashiell Hammett has dialogue crackled like this. From former New York Post "Page Six" columnist Ian Spiegelman comes a modern noir thriller set in the world of New York gossip. Welcome to Yesterday is a reader’s delight, striking the perfect balance of intelligent prose and society’s obsession with celebrity -- throw in a murder, and the effect is electric.

Leon Koch is not having a good day. And his night’s about to get worse. When a drug-addicted talent agent -- whom Koch, a young reporter at New York’s most powerful gossip column, had just disgraced -- is found dead, Koch wakes up at the center of the scandal. Suddenly, the spotlight’s on him. He must discover the real story behind the death, while maneuvering through the world of Manhattan gossip -- encountering a steady stream of starlets, superstars, and publicists -- all the while avoiding the police and his new editor-in-chief.

Through his laconic, hard working and harder-drinking antihero, Spiegelman offers readers an insider’s glimpse into the world of celebrity journalism with the authority and skill of a born stylist.


Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Putting his experience as a gossip columnist for the New York Post's notorious Page Six to good use, Spiegelman presents a down-and-dirty insider's look at the life of a scandalmonger in his second novel (after 2003's Everyone's Burning). Leon Koch, a reporter for an unnamed New York City tabloid owned by some unsavory figures from down under, has long lived a life of ennui, not caring much about anything. His attitude begins to change after he receives a disturbing anonymous call from a woman blaming him for the suicide of a talent agent, the subject of a recent gossip column. A homicide detective takes an interest in the case, and soon Koch and his colleagues find themselves at the center of a scandal. In order to unravel the mystery, Koch plunges into the bleak and untrustworthy world of celebrities, publicists and others who follow in their wake. While the solution to the crime is nothing special, Spiegelman has created a unique character in a searing look at the world of professional gossip. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Last we saw of Leon Koch ( Everyone's Burning, 2003), he was drinking and drugging his way through nighttime Queens. Now he is in Manhattan, writing a newspaper gossip column, and his debauched nights are devoted to the search for dirt: "an empire of addicts, psychos, snitches, all of us so interested in each other, each other's business, each other' s bodies, every whisper repeated, every orgasm an item . . ." We pick up Koch's disintegrating life after a notorious talent agent has killed himself. Was he driven to it by one of Koch's columns, or was he murdered? The police like Koch as a suspect, forcing the writer to save his job by figuring out what happened. Spiegelman, a former New York Post gossip columnist, nails the frenetic, drug-fueled, celebrity-nightlife scene with crackling dialogue and go-for-the--jugular cynicism, combining Bright Lights, Big City with the classic tabloid film Sweet Smell of Success. A too-sweet girlfriend adds an unwelcome wisp of sentimentality to this very dry martini of a novel, but don't worry: a little secondhand sunlight is no match for the dark clouds that hover over Leon's world. Bill Ott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product Details

  • Hardcover: 260 pages
  • Publisher: Miramax; First Edition edition (May 17, 2006)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1401352502
  • ISBN-13: 978-1401352509
  • Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.8 x 1.2 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,336,328 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

10 Reviews
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4 star:
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3 star:    (0)
2 star:
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Average Customer Review
3.9 out of 5 stars (10 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars check out his first book, July 15, 2006
By 
This review is from: Welcome to Yesterday (Hardcover)
A real disappointment. The characters lacked any depth, the murder/mystery plot was stale as corkboard, and the dialogue felt very contrived.

The author's first book was fantastic, very visceral and real. "Welcome to Yesterday" seemed pretty empty in comparison. Wonder what happened between then and now. Reads like a totally different writer.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Book 2, June 2, 2006
This review is from: Welcome to Yesterday (Hardcover)
I didn't recognize the characters either, but to me that wasn't the driving force of the plot so it didn't matter. His first book was taught in my writing class last year and a few of us liked it so much we wrote papers on it. The storyline in this one is a guilty pleasure but the writing is so perfect it's nutritious too...
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Spiegelman or Nostradamus?, May 22, 2006
This review is from: Welcome to Yesterday (Hardcover)
I picked this up because I met the author once when he was working for Page Six; we talked for awhile about celebrity gossip, but I never thought to ask him about exactly how these columns operate. He probably could have told me a lot: it seems he is something of a clairvoyant. Payoff scandals, a lying memoirist--it's all here. This book is a great read. The mystery is cool, there's an old-school newsroom character who's office is in the basement of a bar, and an amazing club scene that recalls the hell that was the late Lot 61. (Ok, I guess it could have been Lotus, too...)
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