Jed Rosenthal hasn't published a book in fourteen years, the mother of his child left him in a 'trial separation' that has stretched on indefinitely, and he struggles to navigate the daily sorrows of their co-parenting arrangement. But the implosion of Jed's family is simply a footnote in the larger history of the Rosenthal family's decline. Just days after the JFK assassination, Karyn 'Cookie' Kupcinet was found dead in her Hollywood apartment. The press reported that the 22-year-old was strangled, yet unanswered questions linger to this day. Cookie's parents had been close friends with Jed's grandparents, but in the aftermath of her death, their friendship abruptly and inexplicably ended. Decades later, Jed pores over family stories, newspaper archives, old photos, and crime scene notes, believing that if he can divine the truth of Cookie's death, it might shed light on a mystery closer to home.
A vibe ... What he has constructed is a moody and engrossing meditation on the ephemerality of memory, the persistence of family myths and a haunting ode to a bygone Chicago. A memorable novel of the stories and people everybody has already forgotten.
Exuberant ... Packs the punch of his short stories, dramatizing a real-life unsolved murder, both a homage to Hollywood noir and a meditation on how and why our deepest connections can betray us ... His novel derives its evocative power from the language of duplicity and disinformation, the callous ways we talk past each other, stunted in echo chambers of our making. The rest is gossip.
