So Sam Briscoe, now that he’s retiring from newspapers, is going to go write a novel?
[Laughs.] I think he’s going to Paris with the rest of the people. Get a little night rewrite at the Paris Herald Tribune. There’s only about four people left on the staff. No, I think because it’s twenty-four hours, and the two most important things in his life have ended—this woman that he has been together with for more than twenty years, and the newspaper. And at seventy-one, he’s not going to go apply for jobs anywhere. He just won’t do that. I think he’ll go out and read books…
Is it safe to say that there is a fair amount of Pete Hamill in Sam Briscoe?
Sure. But there is also a fair amount of me in the Mexican immigrant from Sunset Park. The old Madame Bovary “C’est moi” effect that all fiction writers are conscious of. But some of the biography is different, obviously. Sam grew up in Manhattan, I grew up in Brooklyn. His father is Jewish, my father is Belfast Catholic. He’s younger than I am. But also, part of Sam’s character comes from people I knew. Most importantly, Paul Sann, who was the editor of the [New York] Post when I started, in 1960. I remember so clearly one day. Paul’s wife had died just hours before. She was someone he loved deeply. You could tell when you saw them together. It was the small things. Like no New Yorker proclaims how much he loves his wife in public. If he does, we know he’s cheating. And Paul came in to the paper, and I was there, and I saw him walk to his desk, sit down, and write the story of her life and death. Then he checked what was going in the paper and went home. It was a lesson to me as a kid that you can’t escape personal tragedy. And my guy, when he gets the news, he knows that he has to put out the paper too. It’s two murders at a good address, and that’s one of the staples of tabloid journalism.
Briscoe and his coworker Helen Loomis are two characters in the book that have extreme nostalgia for the way things were. Helen especially, who fondly remembers the days before baseball was “played by millionaires for millionaires…”
Me too! [Laughs.] She’s a little of me too.
Well, how much of that nostalgia is rooted in reality? Did the newsroom really use to look like something out of His Girl Friday?
You know what the best newspaper movie of that era is? Deadline—U.S.A. with Humphrey Bogart. I think it’s the best newspaper movie, followed by His Girl Friday and All the President’s Men, and some of the others. Sweet Smell of Success. But when I first [started working at a newspaper], I thought I had gone to heaven. It was rowdy; it was obscene. Nobody got paid enough money, so that they couldn’t move to the suburbs even if they wanted. It was essentially a bohemian trade. A guy would get drunk, throw a typewriter out the window, and go up the block and work for the Journal American. There was a way to do that. The word you used, “nostalgia,” is exactly right for that. Because I feel nostalgia is a genuine emotion. It’s not sentimentality, which is a different thing. Nostalgia is an ache for the things that are gone, that actually existed and that you experienced. I don’t care about any concept of heaven. I was in it. And it was awful in some ways. Nobody had enough money. The Post in those days was on 75 West Street, and they had no air-conditioning. And right across the river, before there was a Battery Park City, there were the United Fruit Piers. So you had the most giant mosquitoes in the history of mankind float into the city room if you’re working nights, and you’d type and slap all night long.
Glamorous existence, that.
Yeah. I didn’t want to go to bed.
Briscoe would rather retire than work for the new website. Is there any kind of fundamental difference in a writer’s approach to publishing on the Internet and publishing in a paper?
No. I think writing is writing. There’s a difference between writing a tweet and writing for a newspaper, but that’s like trying to learn haiku or something. But I don’t think there’s a difference. What I tell the students over at NYU, where I talk about craft, is that the piano didn’t write the music, Mozart did. You have to write at the top of your talent, and it has to be right.
I think what’s going to happen—we’re seeing it now—is the professionalization of Internet journalism. I’m for the [New York] Times or the Wall Street Journal charging for people to have access. This is not a public service. You have to pay money to send someone to Afghanistan. But I’m reasonably optimistic, having seen a lot of these kids at NYU. They have the passion. They want to have lives that are not about making ten million dollars. They’re not saying “Gee, if I could only learn to write this sentence better I’d be famous.” They’re not driven by that. They want to have meaningful lives.
I noticed that you have old comic strips on your wall. I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, but aren’t you a little old for comics?
Well, I don’t keep up! I don’t sit around and talk about the greatest new manga that just came out or anything like that. But they’ve played a big part in my life. You can see I have all of these original cartoons on the wall. But they were an entryway for me to get into newspapers, because I was a follower of the daily comic strips in the age of the narrative. There’s still a part of me that when I’m laying out a story, I think [the way] comic book artists do. It was no accident that Updike was a comic freak when he was a kid. Vonnegut, other people. That’s how they started reading.
What are your writing habits like?
It depends on what stage I’m at, because, particularly with fiction, I write longhand. And that was part of getting the journalism out of my hands. It was an accidental discovery thirty-odd years ago. Because I was doing both for a long time. The two ways I dealt with the split were, first, a nap. When I’m finished with the journalism, take a nap and somehow the subconscious starts to make the shift for you. But I’ll write four or five pages longhand, and then I’ll go to the computer and transcribe them, which gives me a second draft. And then sometimes momentum carries me another four or five pages. The longhand was the key to it, though. It felt more like a handmade thing.
Interview by Andrew Toal, reprinted by permission of inReads.com.
Questions and topics for discussion
As a tabloid, the New York World milks stories like the fatal shooting of a Stuyvesant High School student, giving it big play on the front page. Do you believe this is ethical journalism? How much of this story do you think belongs in the news? What does the student’s death (and readers’ interest in it) say about society?
What does Richard Elwood, the publisher, symbolize to Sam Briscoe? Why does the future look so bleak for newspapers?
Do you think Sam was right to say that what was being reported on CelineWire.com wasn’t real news? Were you surprised that this gossip website was doing better than a newspaper? What do you think it says about the current state of print journalism?
What role does Bobby Fonseca play in the novel? How does he differ from Sam, and in what ways are the two alike?
Ali Watson echoes a lesson from the 1960s: “Never create guys with nothing to lose.” How does this lesson apply to his son, Malik Shahid? How does it apply to Josh Thompson?
Sam is ashamed that after learning of Cynthia Harding’s death, he automatically thinks about how to cover the story in the World, including what the headline should be. Do you think this is a defense mechanism to help him avoid confronting the tragedy? How does Sam cope with the news at first? How does this change over the course of the novel? How do you think he will manage in the future?
Why do you think Jamal’s thoughts on jihad changed after his haj? How much of an impact do you think having a wife and child had on his change of heart? If things had gone differently for Malik and he too had become a husband and father, do you think he would have turned away from radical Islam?
Josh is surprised to see a society murder on the cover of the World instead of coverage of Iraq or Afghanistan. Were you also surprised? Why or why not? How do you think a newspaper should balance its coverage of global and local issues?
Lew Forrest reminisces with Consuelo and say
s that he loved her, even though he also loved his wife. Do you think it’s possible to love two people at the same time? Why or why not?
Helen Loomis wonders if she was a storyteller like Scheherazade, telling stories to stay alive. Do you think this description also applies to Sam? What do you think will become of him when the paper is gone?
What role does nostalgia play in Tabloid City?
Do you think Myles Compton gets what he deserves? Why or why not?
Bobby Fonseca recalls a professor at journalism school telling him, “Ya gotta learn to forget. Ya gotta leave all the pain in the city room. Report it, write it, and go home.” Do you think Bobby, Helen, or Sam is able to forget? How much of the pain that they witness as reporters and editors do they each carry around?
Why do you think Malik blames his father for everything? What went wrong in their relationship? Do you think there was anything Ali could have done to reconcile with his son before it was too late? Do you think their final confrontation was inevitable?
What do you think prevents Josh from acting when he has the opportunity?
Also by Pete Hamill
NOVELS
A Killing for Christ
The Gift
Dirty Laundry
Flesh and Blood
The Deadly Piece
The Guns of Heaven
Loving Women
Snow in August
Forever
North River
SHORT STORY COLLECTIONS
The Invisible City
Tokyo Sketches
JOURNALISM
Irrational Ravings
Tools as Art
Piecework
News Is a Verb
MEMOIRS
A Drinking Life
Downtown: My Manhattan
BIOGRAPHY
Diego Rivera
Why Sinatra Matters
Praise for Pete Hamill’s
TABLOID CITY
“There’s murder and mayhem in Pete Hamill’s latest novel, Tabloid City, but the real victim in his book is the print journalism that Hamill knows and loves so well. This ticking time bomb of a novel is about the end of a form of daily storytelling in which America’s big cities are like small towns—their recognizable casts of characters, dramas, and moral struggles playing out on a slightly bigger, more complex stage…. Hamill moves around the city easily on paper, with a great fondness reminiscent of the writing of Joseph Mitchell—the New Yorker writer who is a sacred name at the intersection of New York journalism and literature.”
—Susan Salter Reynolds, Los Angeles Times
“It’s hard to find a mention of Pete Hamill that doesn’t include his association with the city of New York. Over his long career, the man has come to symbolize the grittier level of the world of New York letters…. In his latest novel, entitled Tabloid City, he offers a picture of the city as he sees it today, told from the vantage points of a host of characters who could have been pulled straight from the pages of one of his tabloids, all lonely, all at the end of their rope, all entirely New York…. Gripping enough to keep the pages turning, this novel is really about the city itself, and how even though it may be in flux, it’s still the best place in the world to be lonely.”
—Nicholas Mancusi, Daily Beast
“Hamill has written a glorious homage to New York and the tabloid journalists who cover the dark corners of the city.”
—Newark Star-Ledger
“A bedazzling new book…. A vivid, nonstop, time-stamped romp around a New York that brims with authenticity. [Hamill’s] novel bittersweetly bridges tabloid newspapering’s last gasps and the emerging brave new world of digital journalism. His characters intersect in a gripping and sentimental ode to the profession and to the city that have been the objects of Mr. Hamill’s most enduring crush.”
—Sam Roberts, New York Times
“Hamill is as New York City as the Empire State Building and the Bowery, a classic newspaperman schooled in the old days of several daily newspapers. And his many novels have been based in the Big Apple. His latest is no exception, with a title that suggests both journalism and New York…. With this murder as the centerpiece of the plot, Hamill moves the story around and around through a cycle of characters all related in some fashion to the central event, each visitation to each character adding layers to the author’s knowing depiction of New York’s varied lifestyles.”
—Brad Hooper, Booklist (starred review)
“Set in modern-day, [recession-plagued] Manhattan, this book revolves around 24 hours in the life of a cast of characters whose paths intersect in surprising and sometimes alarming ways…. A page turner of a book with a somewhat complex and rapidly advancing plot. As characters begin to interact with each other more and more, you can’t help but wonder how Hamill will possibly weave it all together at the end—and when he does, it’s impressive indeed.”
—Catherine Mallette, Fort Worth Star-Telegram
“You expect an old newspaper guy to get it right. Hamill does.”
—Anne Bendheim, Asbury Park (N.J.) Press
“Sensational mayhem…. As different as they all seem, each of the players has a vital and well-crafted place in the story. And when that double homicide—at an upscale address, no less—takes place, Hamill’s round-robin technique becomes a vital way for readers to experience the wide-reaching effect of the crime without losing track of the other threads that give the book its texture and make it much more than another hard-boiled crime novel in a fedora. Tabloid City’s subplots really shine—this is where Hamill’s attention to detail and talent for writing memorable characters are most apparent…. Each piece of the story is thoughtfully crafted and written with care and cutting caricature. The frequent dropping of names—socialites, politicos, and bankers all make the cut, but a special fondness is reserved for whiskey-soaked journalists’ haunts—adds a personality and tabloid-style punch that Hamill, who has been editor-in-chief of both the New York Post and New York Daily News, clearly delights in. Tabloid City is, at its core, exciting to read. The story is engaging and the characters distinct and fascinating.”
—Adam Rathe, National Public Radio
“Be prepared to be captured by this gritty, riveting New York City drama. Covering scarcely a 24-hour period, uncommon in its style, detail, and intensity, this mystery will sink its teeth deep, shake you, move you, scare you, and, above all, entertain. Using a tough, edgy, no-nonsense style, Hamill is the master of the moment and the memory. He leaves no stone unturned and no sense unexplored as he provides deeply personal clandestine glimpses into life’s hard realities…. Written in a style that underscores that life does not occur in complete sentences, Tabloid City is not a standard mystery novel. Hamill packs a ton of life into each paragraph. That and a powerful ending give Tabloid City a definite wow factor. Buy it. Borrow it. Read it.”
—J. Curran, The Mystery Site
“In veteran newspaperman Pete Hamill’s new novel, no character has just one cross to bear, one death to mourn. Perhaps to match its setting, the book is full of big, lurid trouble, conveyed in the bluntest tough-guy terms possible. The plot throws together newspaper folk, terrorists, cops, homeless veterans, an aging painter, a patron of the arts, and other assorted New York types as they hurry about, colliding with one another in acts of lust, commerce, and crime.”
—Kate Tuttle, Boston Globe
“Tabloid City might be the most ambitious of all [Hamill’s novels]… as seen through the eyes of a disparate cast of characters as they hurtle toward an apocalyptic convergence…. Even though the major characters experience misfortune that would rival the trials of Job, the book exudes a subtle undercurrent of hope that would seem to reflect New York’s defiance in the aftermath of 9/11.”
—George Kimball, Irish Times
“Few authors are as synonymous with New York City as Pete Hamill, so it is fitting that the Brooklyn-bred darling of the Post and the Daily News returns with a story as frenetic, complicated,
harrowing and alive as his beloved town. We begin Tabloid City at midnight with Sam Briscoe, an aging editor of a daily newspaper, putting the next day’s afternoon edition to bed. But the night is far from over in the city that never sleeps, and anything could happen before the ink hits the page…. As the night and the following day progress, Hamill weaves seemingly unrelated stories together in a cohesive narrative, showing both the deep chasms and the uncanny connections between the city’s many threads. He writes with an almost cinematic flair…. Hamill is, as always, a consummate storyteller, and his prose vibrates with raw energy…. Tabloid City is an exciting, thought-provoking read.”
—Rebecca Shapiro, BookPage
“In a storied career that included stints as editor of the Daily News and the Post, Pete Hamill has long been embraced as New York’s Own and likely one of its finest. Tabloid City stands as both an authentic thriller as well as a farewell to the city that was Hamill’s New York. Even as he insidiously builds the tension of a homegrown Islamic terrorist planning his final act, Hamill name-checks some of the great journalists of yesterday, then embodies them in characters like Helen Loomis, the achingly lonely rewrite woman who can tell any story on deadline, or Bobby Fonseca, the kid starting out who ardently believes in delivering the word. Throughout, Hamill conjures many recognizable New York types, then takes the giant step of connecting them. This is the veteran journalist at his best. Where others see only the grid that delineates New York by social status, Hamill eyes the intersections where all cross paths…. In Tabloid City, terrorism blindly lives among us while Hamill sees a world almost gone by. Those who would dismiss that world as nostalgia might consider what in today’s New York will they have to lovingly evoke years from now.”