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The Gossip Columnist's Daughter
The cold case of a young Hollywood starlet’s death sets a contemporary writer on an epic and comic quest to uncover the truth, and its connection to his own family—a new novel by “a major talent” (New York Times) and “one of the most distinctive voices of his generation” (Granta).
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—Chicago royalty, Irv and Essee Kupcinet—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—whether it was suicide, murder, or part of a larger conspiracy—it might shed light on a mystery closer to home.
Spanning seventy plus years, and weaving together family drama and a true-life unsolved case, The Gossip Columnist’s Daughter is a singular, wryly comic, and deeply human exploration into friendship and the bonds that sustain us.
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—Chicago royalty, Irv and Essee Kupcinet—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—whether it was suicide, murder, or part of a larger conspiracy—it might shed light on a mystery closer to home.
Spanning seventy plus years, and weaving together family drama and a true-life unsolved case, The Gossip Columnist’s Daughter is a singular, wryly comic, and deeply human exploration into friendship and the bonds that sustain us.
448 pages, Hardcover
First published August 12, 2025
66 people are currently reading
6752 people want to read
About the author
Peter Orner
39 books288 followersPeter Orner was born in Chicago and is the author of three novels: Esther Stories (Houghton Mifflin, 2001), The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo (Little, Brown, 2006), and his most recent, Love and Shame and Love (Little, Brown, 2011) which was recently called epic by Daniel Handler, "...epic like Gilgamesh, epic like a guitar solo." (Orner has since bought Gilgamesh and is enjoying it.) Love and Shame and Love is illustrated throughout by his brother Eric Orner, a comic artist and illustrator whose long time independent/alt weekly strip The Mostly Unfabulous Social Life of Ethan Green was made into a feature film in 2008. Eric Orner's work is featured this year in Best American Cartoons edited by Alison Bechdel.
A film version of one of Orner's stories, The Raft, is currently in production and stars Ed Asner.
The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo, a Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and a San Francisco Chronicle Best-Seller, won the Bard Fiction Prize. The novel is being translated into French, Dutch, Italian, and German. The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo is set in Namibia where Orner lived and worked in the early 1990's.
Esther Stories was awarded the Rome Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Goldberg Prize for Jewish Fiction, and was a Finalist for the Pen Hemingway Award and the New York Public Library's Young Lions Award.
Orner is also the editor of two non-fiction books, Underground America (2008) and Hope Deferred: Narratives of Zimbabwean Lives (co-editor Annie Holmes, 2010), both published by McSweeney's/ Voice of Witness, an imprint devoted to using oral history to illuminate human rights crises around the world. Harper's Magazine wrote, "Hope Deferred might be the most important publication out of Zimbabwe in the past thirty years."
Orner has published fiction in the Atlantic Monthly, The Paris Review, McSweeney's, The Southern Review, and various other publications. Stories have been anthologized in Best American Stories and the Pushcart Prize Annual. Orner has been awarded fellowships from the Guggenheim and Lannan Foundations.
Orner has taught at the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop (Visiting Professor, 2011), University of Montana (William Kittredge Visting Writer, 2009), the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College (2009) Washington University (Visiting Hurst Professor, 2008), Bard College (Bard Fiction Prize Fellowship, 2007), Miami University (Visting Professor, 2002), Charles University in Prague (Visting Law Faculty, 2000). Orner is a long time permanent faculty member at San Francisco State where he is an associate professor. He would like to divide his time between a lot of places, especially San Francisco and Chicago.
A film version of one of Orner's stories, The Raft, is currently in production and stars Ed Asner.
The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo, a Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and a San Francisco Chronicle Best-Seller, won the Bard Fiction Prize. The novel is being translated into French, Dutch, Italian, and German. The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo is set in Namibia where Orner lived and worked in the early 1990's.
Esther Stories was awarded the Rome Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Goldberg Prize for Jewish Fiction, and was a Finalist for the Pen Hemingway Award and the New York Public Library's Young Lions Award.
Orner is also the editor of two non-fiction books, Underground America (2008) and Hope Deferred: Narratives of Zimbabwean Lives (co-editor Annie Holmes, 2010), both published by McSweeney's/ Voice of Witness, an imprint devoted to using oral history to illuminate human rights crises around the world. Harper's Magazine wrote, "Hope Deferred might be the most important publication out of Zimbabwe in the past thirty years."
Orner has published fiction in the Atlantic Monthly, The Paris Review, McSweeney's, The Southern Review, and various other publications. Stories have been anthologized in Best American Stories and the Pushcart Prize Annual. Orner has been awarded fellowships from the Guggenheim and Lannan Foundations.
Orner has taught at the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop (Visiting Professor, 2011), University of Montana (William Kittredge Visting Writer, 2009), the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College (2009) Washington University (Visiting Hurst Professor, 2008), Bard College (Bard Fiction Prize Fellowship, 2007), Miami University (Visting Professor, 2002), Charles University in Prague (Visting Law Faculty, 2000). Orner is a long time permanent faculty member at San Francisco State where he is an associate professor. He would like to divide his time between a lot of places, especially San Francisco and Chicago.
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
June 7, 2025
I received a free copy of, The Gossip Columnist's Daughter, by Peter Omer, from the publisher and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Jed Rosenthal wants to solve 22 year old Karyn Kupcinet, Cookies as she was known, murder. Cookie is the daughter of Irv Kupcinet, famous columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times. I remember reading his column, growing up, but I do remember that his daughter was murdered. This was an interesting read, on a case I never heard of.
August 16, 2025
Having never lived in Chicago, I was unaware of the columns and tv program hosted by Irv Kupcinet. But as I read this shape shifter of a novel, I learned that he really existed, that he filled a role similar to that of the Bay Area's Herb Caen, that he knew everybody and everybody knew him, but that shortly after the assassination of JFK, he and his wife suffered their own tragedy, the (murder? suicide?) of Karyn Kupcinet, their daughter. This highly readable account, narrated by Jed Rosenthal, a university professor who does a deep dive into those events, works as an audio since the reader, Robert Fass, has the ability to make you feel you're sitting across from one another as he tells the story. Jed is drawn to the story since his grandparents and the Kupcinets were inseparable, but had a falling out shortly after Karyn's death, and he longs to discover the roots of that separation. Highly recommended.
August 12, 2025
This was a great read! The writing style was a bit different than what I’m used to reading, but I enjoyed very much. I went in blindly and was not disappointed! I wasn’t familiar with this case and I’m not sure what’s actual fact and what’s fiction. The author did an amazing job intertwining fact with fiction! I was hooked from start to finish! Overall, an interesting read.
Thank you to NetGalley and the author for gifting me this eARC!
Thank you to NetGalley and the author for gifting me this eARC!
August 26, 2025
I guess if you’re from Chicago, male, and over the age of about 60, there’s a lot here for you. Otherwise, it’s a lot of inside baseball style content with a very narrow audience that pretty much sounds like nonsense to anyone outside of what was apparently a hyper-specific target group of readers.
The mystery itself is okay, and probably would have been better had it not been buried in a lot of bizarre local color that is neither common knowledge nor explained in the book.
I don’t mind the occasional in joke or obscure local culture reference, but I’m not going to go look up 75 of them, so not explaining this is stuff in the narrative is just…sigh.
The book is also overrun with a lot of very outdated references that just feel passé rather than nostalgic or historical. I still don’t really understand who Irv is, and perhaps more importantly, I don’t care.
I’ve been to Chicago many a time and thought it was lovely, and would have been interested in learning more about the city and its history through a mystery. But I learned nothing here except that I wasn’t invited to be in on the joke.
Perhaps a fun read for a specific subset of readers, but otherwise fairly devoid of appeal, even for someone like me who usually loves an unfamiliar locale and premise.
*I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.*
The mystery itself is okay, and probably would have been better had it not been buried in a lot of bizarre local color that is neither common knowledge nor explained in the book.
I don’t mind the occasional in joke or obscure local culture reference, but I’m not going to go look up 75 of them, so not explaining this is stuff in the narrative is just…sigh.
The book is also overrun with a lot of very outdated references that just feel passé rather than nostalgic or historical. I still don’t really understand who Irv is, and perhaps more importantly, I don’t care.
I’ve been to Chicago many a time and thought it was lovely, and would have been interested in learning more about the city and its history through a mystery. But I learned nothing here except that I wasn’t invited to be in on the joke.
Perhaps a fun read for a specific subset of readers, but otherwise fairly devoid of appeal, even for someone like me who usually loves an unfamiliar locale and premise.
*I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.*
September 7, 2025
Just so you know, reader, and I should know because I was the guy’s cat for more years than I’d care to admit, your narrator, one Jed Rosenthal, is a flake, a wack job, a weirdo – you pick your own moniker for someone who once drew my attention to a humongous spider on the wall with the idea of my doing I don’t know what with it (eat it? commune with it?), and, speaking of monikers, hung on me the name of the red-nosed reindeer, for Pete’s sake, and, more immediately to the point here, had apparently been scribbling away night and day even before the two of us ever met on whatever you’d call this crazy-ass concoction of his, with its mix of the real and the semi-real and the flat-out made-up.
Though to be fair, if you can get past all the personal stuff about his English Department gig at Loyola (enough already, all this breast-beating from writers), or the woes of his fictional family (though one of them ending up face down in the Chicago River has a certain pizazz to it) or his ruminations about anything and everything, including, time and again, how all roads lead to Chicago, if you can get past all that, there’s actually a pretty interesting real-life story at the book’s core about the death of the daughter of a real-life bigwig Chicago columnist from the early ’60s.
Irving Kupcinet his name was, though just Kup he was to his legions of fans who, like Sinatra, couldn’t sleep nights and would while away the night and early morning hours in those distant days before smartphones and podcasts and 300 channels by tuning into the show, which had no official ending time and would wander deep into the night, sometimes until dawn, with guests such as Carl Sandburg or Liberace or Dick Gregory or Dorothy Lamour or Dinah Shore all yakking away about things ranging from gardening to race relations to life on Mars.
Mr. Chicago, he was known as, with how he hobnobbed with anybody and everybody, including no less than the pope (had a personal audience with him he did) and Hollywood luminaries such as Jerry Lewis (“very, very chummy” the two were) and Bogart and Bacall (lunched with them the day after their wedding) and old Ski Nose, aka Bob Hope, as well as Old Blue Eyes. Even the model for the social-climbing gossip columnist in Bellow’s “Humboldt’s Gift” Kup supposedly was.
A real mover and shaker, in short, Kup, whose celebrity status may or may not have contributed to the edgy mental state of his from-the-start-headed-for trouble daughter.
Cookie she came to be known as, though she was born Roberta Lynn and called herself Bobbe in high school and later Karyn after getting serious about acting (she thought Karyn went better with Kupcinet). The real subject she is of Jed’s ramblings, or the circumstances of her death, anyway, which was never nailed down for sure as either a strangling or a suicide, though the fact that the hyoid in her neck was broken – the same bone as with Epstein, which lends a certain topicality to her story – certainly would seem to make the case for the former.
More than a couple of similarities her death shared with Marilyn Monroe’s, including how she was found nude (on the floor, not the bed) in her apartment in West Hollywood. And with how the discovery came just six days after Ruby plugged Oswald in the Dallas City Jail, it gave rise to speculation – heads up, conspiracy buffs – that her death might have been connected to the JFK assassination, which, to hear the conspiracy buffs tell it, might also have been connected to a series of other deaths, including, though it’s not cited in Jed’s book, a high-profile woman gossip columnist of the day, Dorothy Kilgallen, who was supposedly getting ready to blow the lid on the full story behind the assassination whose tentacles, in the minds of the buffs, extended to Kup’s daughter.
Something of a problem child she was apparently from the start, Cookie, with how she took pills and shoplifted and came up with wacko notes and ultimately made her way to Hollywood, where, amid some modicum of success, she hooked up romantically with a small-time actor of the day, Andrew Prine, whom if you’ve heard of at all is probably from his having starred in a modern-day cowboy show of the time, “Wide Country,” which also featured another bit actor of the day, Earl Holliman, and had the two of them riding the rodeo circuit in the way of Marty Milner and George Maharis hitting the road in “Route 66” (what is it with Hollywood and all this male buddy-buddy stuff?)
Decidedly out of his league, anyway, it would seem, our Andy, with the more obviously literate Cookie, who was given to hold forth on art and literature, and, in a notable instance of this, once remarked to Prine that for Bertrand Russell, it was “the human interest in the arcane, the esoteric, the abstruse that separates us from barnyard animals,” drawing a response from Andy of “Huh? Barnyard animals what?”
Not apparently the sharpest knife in the drawer, Andy, and also a suspect in Cookie’s death, something I’m more than happy to give legs to, with how he was also supposed to have strangled his ex-wife’s cat (well, case closed). Though again to be fair, another candidate was the guy downstairs from Candy, also a Hollywood type with connections to Hope Lange and Natalie Wood.
Anyway, to get back to Cookie, be it with Andy’s kid or someone else’s, in one of the truly cringy incidents in the book, she was delivered by the same couple who later found her body to an abortionist in Tijuana, whose circumstances were the cringier for their not being so squalid as you might imagine (the doctor a “squat man with a compassionate, almost jovial face” and the scene of the procedure a “clean little room reeking of bleach”).
James Ellroy country this is, folks, he of “Black Dahlia” fame, and in fact he played a not insignificant role in Cookie’s saga with how by hook or crook he was able to get a hold of her case file and with the piece he wrote for “GQ” did more than anyone else, Jed informs us, to keep her name out there, even if Jed wasn’t exactly enamored of him, coming up with one of the better lines in his book when he said of Ellroy that he never met a sentence he didn’t want to behead.
So maybe, as I reconsider, not so wacky a thing as I’ve given you to think, whatever you might call this thing of Jed’s, indeed, with its treatment of the Jewish experience in ’60s Chicago and the connections it makes to the larger political and criminal events of the day, including the heart-wrenching murder of poor little Bobby Franks (“our original sin,” Jed says of it), maybe even some kind of crime masterpiece in the way of “Black Dahlia” or “Chinatown.”
Just don't tell Jed I said so.
Though to be fair, if you can get past all the personal stuff about his English Department gig at Loyola (enough already, all this breast-beating from writers), or the woes of his fictional family (though one of them ending up face down in the Chicago River has a certain pizazz to it) or his ruminations about anything and everything, including, time and again, how all roads lead to Chicago, if you can get past all that, there’s actually a pretty interesting real-life story at the book’s core about the death of the daughter of a real-life bigwig Chicago columnist from the early ’60s.
Irving Kupcinet his name was, though just Kup he was to his legions of fans who, like Sinatra, couldn’t sleep nights and would while away the night and early morning hours in those distant days before smartphones and podcasts and 300 channels by tuning into the show, which had no official ending time and would wander deep into the night, sometimes until dawn, with guests such as Carl Sandburg or Liberace or Dick Gregory or Dorothy Lamour or Dinah Shore all yakking away about things ranging from gardening to race relations to life on Mars.
Mr. Chicago, he was known as, with how he hobnobbed with anybody and everybody, including no less than the pope (had a personal audience with him he did) and Hollywood luminaries such as Jerry Lewis (“very, very chummy” the two were) and Bogart and Bacall (lunched with them the day after their wedding) and old Ski Nose, aka Bob Hope, as well as Old Blue Eyes. Even the model for the social-climbing gossip columnist in Bellow’s “Humboldt’s Gift” Kup supposedly was.
A real mover and shaker, in short, Kup, whose celebrity status may or may not have contributed to the edgy mental state of his from-the-start-headed-for trouble daughter.
Cookie she came to be known as, though she was born Roberta Lynn and called herself Bobbe in high school and later Karyn after getting serious about acting (she thought Karyn went better with Kupcinet). The real subject she is of Jed’s ramblings, or the circumstances of her death, anyway, which was never nailed down for sure as either a strangling or a suicide, though the fact that the hyoid in her neck was broken – the same bone as with Epstein, which lends a certain topicality to her story – certainly would seem to make the case for the former.
More than a couple of similarities her death shared with Marilyn Monroe’s, including how she was found nude (on the floor, not the bed) in her apartment in West Hollywood. And with how the discovery came just six days after Ruby plugged Oswald in the Dallas City Jail, it gave rise to speculation – heads up, conspiracy buffs – that her death might have been connected to the JFK assassination, which, to hear the conspiracy buffs tell it, might also have been connected to a series of other deaths, including, though it’s not cited in Jed’s book, a high-profile woman gossip columnist of the day, Dorothy Kilgallen, who was supposedly getting ready to blow the lid on the full story behind the assassination whose tentacles, in the minds of the buffs, extended to Kup’s daughter.
Something of a problem child she was apparently from the start, Cookie, with how she took pills and shoplifted and came up with wacko notes and ultimately made her way to Hollywood, where, amid some modicum of success, she hooked up romantically with a small-time actor of the day, Andrew Prine, whom if you’ve heard of at all is probably from his having starred in a modern-day cowboy show of the time, “Wide Country,” which also featured another bit actor of the day, Earl Holliman, and had the two of them riding the rodeo circuit in the way of Marty Milner and George Maharis hitting the road in “Route 66” (what is it with Hollywood and all this male buddy-buddy stuff?)
Decidedly out of his league, anyway, it would seem, our Andy, with the more obviously literate Cookie, who was given to hold forth on art and literature, and, in a notable instance of this, once remarked to Prine that for Bertrand Russell, it was “the human interest in the arcane, the esoteric, the abstruse that separates us from barnyard animals,” drawing a response from Andy of “Huh? Barnyard animals what?”
Not apparently the sharpest knife in the drawer, Andy, and also a suspect in Cookie’s death, something I’m more than happy to give legs to, with how he was also supposed to have strangled his ex-wife’s cat (well, case closed). Though again to be fair, another candidate was the guy downstairs from Candy, also a Hollywood type with connections to Hope Lange and Natalie Wood.
Anyway, to get back to Cookie, be it with Andy’s kid or someone else’s, in one of the truly cringy incidents in the book, she was delivered by the same couple who later found her body to an abortionist in Tijuana, whose circumstances were the cringier for their not being so squalid as you might imagine (the doctor a “squat man with a compassionate, almost jovial face” and the scene of the procedure a “clean little room reeking of bleach”).
James Ellroy country this is, folks, he of “Black Dahlia” fame, and in fact he played a not insignificant role in Cookie’s saga with how by hook or crook he was able to get a hold of her case file and with the piece he wrote for “GQ” did more than anyone else, Jed informs us, to keep her name out there, even if Jed wasn’t exactly enamored of him, coming up with one of the better lines in his book when he said of Ellroy that he never met a sentence he didn’t want to behead.
So maybe, as I reconsider, not so wacky a thing as I’ve given you to think, whatever you might call this thing of Jed’s, indeed, with its treatment of the Jewish experience in ’60s Chicago and the connections it makes to the larger political and criminal events of the day, including the heart-wrenching murder of poor little Bobby Franks (“our original sin,” Jed says of it), maybe even some kind of crime masterpiece in the way of “Black Dahlia” or “Chinatown.”
Just don't tell Jed I said so.
August 31, 2025
A few details of reaction first! I'm of an age (past 75) and of Chicago proper for the first 20 years and then for all the rest in Chicagoland burbs- so this was MUCH more entertaining for me than it will be for the reader not of an age and not of this place.
It's written in a jarring, short, blunt and sometimes very confusing style. It is QUITE Chicago crux by that aspect itself. It is also very, very Jewish in cadence and context culture of prose, speech, and habits. Even down to the migration places of "moving" homes and when. I have to tell a grandson who is 25 and single to read this one as it is almost entirely in all his old stomping grounds. Northwestern and then just North of that, and now living in Kenosha, WI. Wise man! Also had a granddaughter who went to his Loyola U. (in this tale he gets grant for background search etc. and is Loyola affilated). Now she is in Colorado. Hey I just realized those are my only two not married. HMM! A coincidence? All the rest went AWAY from Chicago for schools.
Regardless, it is an inside out and flipping time/era told tale. And it has immense context of celeb and entertainment and Chicago in its most vibrant and ABSOLUTELY its most enterprising (Candy business alone, not to speak of other industry or stockyards or 100 other directional "we make" exploding success experiences). I know and DO I REMEMBER. Nothing like seeing the bus line entries after the day shift got out at the Nabisco stop or at Rheem just a bit later on Kedzie. 3 buses in a row to get them all on. Or roaming around on bikes all day getting into Tootsie Roll, Cracker Jack or Mars tours with a break for a White Castle in between. Or taking 3 buses down Western to Riverview on Belmont and trying to hit some pizza place you heard about on the way home.
But his particular view was circa the life and death of Irv Kupcinet's daughter Cookie and their small circle of intimates more than ANY part of my Chicago. There was a few quotes in here that were worthy of Royko or Studs Terkel. One of them in paraphrase about "my Chicago world was entirely separate from their world" and by choice too on ALL sides. Truth!
In real time I disliked these columnists of celeb sightings etc. I knew them absolutely for the phonies that they were. Still are. Hence the splits that go along with their getalongs- that too. Never really told here, IMHO, but you KNOW that Essee dropped them because they REALLY knew how she (Cookie) must have died. For most of them in that circuit it was pretend and weep instead.
It is entirely also- quite a sad tale for a myriad of reasons. Because there is so much status posturing in their exact world (still IS too- a mere pittance example: Pritzker dining in three different states /coastlines within companies of dozens while declaring all churches, schools and restaurants closed for over a year or two at the same time in IL). Cookie actually was not an unusual product of it, the pretentious and superior "voice" atmosphere surrounding her.
The city itself was messier then than now. Also much, much more crowded and yet immensely more fun. It isn't only my age either but also in surround context. People were good intent and at least 75% happier on meeting and/or much more positive (NOT ANGRY) in the spirit of ACTUAL inspiration and aspirations. Nearly all (REAL DIVERSITY) were and not just here on the lake/ North side either. In all neighborhoods (42 to 50 of them in reality) until LBJ erased family units to make things "better".
It didn't at all surprise me that everyone in this book was gone to other places by 1980 and most of them by 1963 just winging it where they were.
The style of this book becomes ragged to raggity. The first half for me was nearly a 5 star and the last 1/3rd was barely a 3. So I settled on 4. He did have something to say, but it was extremely egocentric at base. And it got harder to read the more esoteric he got. Bombastically esoteric.
It's written in a jarring, short, blunt and sometimes very confusing style. It is QUITE Chicago crux by that aspect itself. It is also very, very Jewish in cadence and context culture of prose, speech, and habits. Even down to the migration places of "moving" homes and when. I have to tell a grandson who is 25 and single to read this one as it is almost entirely in all his old stomping grounds. Northwestern and then just North of that, and now living in Kenosha, WI. Wise man! Also had a granddaughter who went to his Loyola U. (in this tale he gets grant for background search etc. and is Loyola affilated). Now she is in Colorado. Hey I just realized those are my only two not married. HMM! A coincidence? All the rest went AWAY from Chicago for schools.
Regardless, it is an inside out and flipping time/era told tale. And it has immense context of celeb and entertainment and Chicago in its most vibrant and ABSOLUTELY its most enterprising (Candy business alone, not to speak of other industry or stockyards or 100 other directional "we make" exploding success experiences). I know and DO I REMEMBER. Nothing like seeing the bus line entries after the day shift got out at the Nabisco stop or at Rheem just a bit later on Kedzie. 3 buses in a row to get them all on. Or roaming around on bikes all day getting into Tootsie Roll, Cracker Jack or Mars tours with a break for a White Castle in between. Or taking 3 buses down Western to Riverview on Belmont and trying to hit some pizza place you heard about on the way home.
But his particular view was circa the life and death of Irv Kupcinet's daughter Cookie and their small circle of intimates more than ANY part of my Chicago. There was a few quotes in here that were worthy of Royko or Studs Terkel. One of them in paraphrase about "my Chicago world was entirely separate from their world" and by choice too on ALL sides. Truth!
In real time I disliked these columnists of celeb sightings etc. I knew them absolutely for the phonies that they were. Still are. Hence the splits that go along with their getalongs- that too. Never really told here, IMHO, but you KNOW that Essee dropped them because they REALLY knew how she (Cookie) must have died. For most of them in that circuit it was pretend and weep instead.
It is entirely also- quite a sad tale for a myriad of reasons. Because there is so much status posturing in their exact world (still IS too- a mere pittance example: Pritzker dining in three different states /coastlines within companies of dozens while declaring all churches, schools and restaurants closed for over a year or two at the same time in IL). Cookie actually was not an unusual product of it, the pretentious and superior "voice" atmosphere surrounding her.
The city itself was messier then than now. Also much, much more crowded and yet immensely more fun. It isn't only my age either but also in surround context. People were good intent and at least 75% happier on meeting and/or much more positive (NOT ANGRY) in the spirit of ACTUAL inspiration and aspirations. Nearly all (REAL DIVERSITY) were and not just here on the lake/ North side either. In all neighborhoods (42 to 50 of them in reality) until LBJ erased family units to make things "better".
It didn't at all surprise me that everyone in this book was gone to other places by 1980 and most of them by 1963 just winging it where they were.
The style of this book becomes ragged to raggity. The first half for me was nearly a 5 star and the last 1/3rd was barely a 3. So I settled on 4. He did have something to say, but it was extremely egocentric at base. And it got harder to read the more esoteric he got. Bombastically esoteric.
August 14, 2025
I read a free advance digital review copy provided by the publisher via NetGalley.
Some of the most enjoyable years of my life were the 14 years I spent as a young adult in Chicago in the 70s and 80s. I couldn’t resist a novel set in 1963 Chicago and in the near present.
Just a few days after JFK’s assassination, a struggling actress named Karyn “Cookie” Kupcinet was found dead in her West Hollywood apartment. Recognize that last name? If so, chances are you are or were a Chicagoan. Irv Kupcinet, nicknamed Kup, had a daily gossip column in the Sun-Times, and a late-night talk show. Kup was a shameless name dropper, but he knew everybody in the city and a lot of world-famous stars, too.
In the near-current day, Jed Rosenthal is living with the family cat in a depressing garden apartment, having recently separated from his longtime partner. He is putting in the time as an English professor at Loyola and co-parenting his young daughter. In the long, lonely hours, he develops an obsession about the long-ago death of Cookie, which remains unsolved. (Kup is real, Cookie’s death is real, but Jed is fictional.) As he researches, that mystery becomes entangled with one closer to home. Why did his grandparents, who had been best friends with Kup and his wife, suddenly become completely estranged from them after Cookie’s funeral?
There follows a vivid time travel trip through Chicago—especially Jewish Chicago—in the decades from the 60s to the present. So many names, places and stories. Orner repeats that all Jewish Chicagoans knew each other, or at least of each other, and he definitely makes it sound that way. But doesn’t that mean that Kup and Jed’s grandfather knew a lot of mobsters? Well, yes, it does. And Jed has some theories about what role that might have played in the past.
While Chicago lovers will be the best audience for this novel, it should have broad appeal, with its mix of true crime and family drama, with plenty of doses of smart-alecky humor.
Some of the most enjoyable years of my life were the 14 years I spent as a young adult in Chicago in the 70s and 80s. I couldn’t resist a novel set in 1963 Chicago and in the near present.
Just a few days after JFK’s assassination, a struggling actress named Karyn “Cookie” Kupcinet was found dead in her West Hollywood apartment. Recognize that last name? If so, chances are you are or were a Chicagoan. Irv Kupcinet, nicknamed Kup, had a daily gossip column in the Sun-Times, and a late-night talk show. Kup was a shameless name dropper, but he knew everybody in the city and a lot of world-famous stars, too.
In the near-current day, Jed Rosenthal is living with the family cat in a depressing garden apartment, having recently separated from his longtime partner. He is putting in the time as an English professor at Loyola and co-parenting his young daughter. In the long, lonely hours, he develops an obsession about the long-ago death of Cookie, which remains unsolved. (Kup is real, Cookie’s death is real, but Jed is fictional.) As he researches, that mystery becomes entangled with one closer to home. Why did his grandparents, who had been best friends with Kup and his wife, suddenly become completely estranged from them after Cookie’s funeral?
There follows a vivid time travel trip through Chicago—especially Jewish Chicago—in the decades from the 60s to the present. So many names, places and stories. Orner repeats that all Jewish Chicagoans knew each other, or at least of each other, and he definitely makes it sound that way. But doesn’t that mean that Kup and Jed’s grandfather knew a lot of mobsters? Well, yes, it does. And Jed has some theories about what role that might have played in the past.
While Chicago lovers will be the best audience for this novel, it should have broad appeal, with its mix of true crime and family drama, with plenty of doses of smart-alecky humor.
August 5, 2025
The Gossip Columnist's Daughter is a telling/dramatized accounting of sorts about the murdered daughter to a local celebrity writer in Chicago, Illinois. Spanning decades, the reader travels back and forth through past and present. I am unsure how much of this story is based on fact, or if it’s just an embellishment of information gathered. I’m sure people who know about this case will find it a compelling read. As for those of us who’ve never heard of it and know nothing about the city of Chicago (other than the giant bean and what I’ve seen on television and movies), this was an experience.
*Thanks to little brown and Company and NetGalley for sharing this read with me.
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*Thanks to little brown and Company and NetGalley for sharing this read with me.
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June 4, 2025
In *The Gossip Columnist’s Daughter*, Peter Orner delivers a funny and touching novel that dives into memory, failure, and mystery. The story revolves around Jed Rosenthal, a struggling writer dealing with the fallout of a long "trial separation." He starts looking into the cold case of Karyn “Cookie” Kupcinet, a Hollywood starlet who was found dead in 1963. This journey is not just about solving a mystery; it’s also about uncovering personal and family grief.
Orner expertly weaves different times and tones into the narrative, covering over seventy years without making it feel clunky. His writing is clear and bright, easily moving between the past and present while mixing real events with fiction. Jed’s quest into Cookie’s death reveals deep family issues and unspoken hurts that resonate through time.
While Cookie’s tragic death—rumored to be tied to the Kennedy assassination—adds an intriguing true-crime element, Orner uses it to ask bigger questions: What do we owe the past? What stories do we carry with us, and what do they cost us?
Although the book touches on heavy themes like grief and estrangement, it's also packed with humor typical of Orner's style. Jed’s witty reflections make the narrative feel like a chat with a friend—funny, sad, and very real.
Ultimately, *The Gossip Columnist’s Daughter* is more than just a mystery or a family saga; it’s a thought-provoking look at how stories shape our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an e-ARC in exchange for an unbiased review.
Orner expertly weaves different times and tones into the narrative, covering over seventy years without making it feel clunky. His writing is clear and bright, easily moving between the past and present while mixing real events with fiction. Jed’s quest into Cookie’s death reveals deep family issues and unspoken hurts that resonate through time.
While Cookie’s tragic death—rumored to be tied to the Kennedy assassination—adds an intriguing true-crime element, Orner uses it to ask bigger questions: What do we owe the past? What stories do we carry with us, and what do they cost us?
Although the book touches on heavy themes like grief and estrangement, it's also packed with humor typical of Orner's style. Jed’s witty reflections make the narrative feel like a chat with a friend—funny, sad, and very real.
Ultimately, *The Gossip Columnist’s Daughter* is more than just a mystery or a family saga; it’s a thought-provoking look at how stories shape our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an e-ARC in exchange for an unbiased review.
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July 20, 2025
Jed Rosenthal is struggling in life. His relationship is ailing, his career stagnant, and he feels aimless. Struggling to come to grips with his life, he dives into the history of his family, and the family of his closest friends, the Kupcinet's. At only 22 years old their daughter Karyn "Cookie" Kupcinet was found dead in her apartment in Los Angeles. On a successful track to Hollywood stardom the question of how she died continues to rage on; was she strangled or did she overdose on pills? And, did Cookie's death have anything to do with the assassination of JFK? Don't be confused though, author Peter Orner doesn't attempt to actually answer any of those questions; instead The Gossip Columnist's Daughter delves into the lives of the Rosenthal's and the Kupcinet's in a non-linear way.
If you're from Chicago, or have frequented Chicago a lot, there are references galore that will bring you delight. If you're like me, who has never been, this may be a bit frustrating. Written in snapshots of time The Gossip Columnist's Daughter is a peculiar read; I didn't fall head over heels for it, but I also didn't dislike it either. It felt like the quest of a man to find the answers to what's happening in the present by looking back and studying the past. I found sections to be more engaging than others, but I liked the varied lengths on each page because it gave the book naturally breaks.
A hard book to rate and likely need a niche type of audience to adore, I'm giving it 3 out of 5 stars.
Thank you Little Brown Co for the gifted ARC.
If you're from Chicago, or have frequented Chicago a lot, there are references galore that will bring you delight. If you're like me, who has never been, this may be a bit frustrating. Written in snapshots of time The Gossip Columnist's Daughter is a peculiar read; I didn't fall head over heels for it, but I also didn't dislike it either. It felt like the quest of a man to find the answers to what's happening in the present by looking back and studying the past. I found sections to be more engaging than others, but I liked the varied lengths on each page because it gave the book naturally breaks.
A hard book to rate and likely need a niche type of audience to adore, I'm giving it 3 out of 5 stars.
Thank you Little Brown Co for the gifted ARC.
July 14, 2025
I received an ARC of this upcoming novel through NetGalley.
The gossip columnist is Irv Kupcinet, a true life Chicago legend. A man about town, he knew everyone in Chicago and loads of big name TV and movie stars. His life was jarred in 1963 by the mysterious death of his daughter, Karyn, found strangled in a hotel room in Hollywood. She was just 22 and had yet to make it big. No one has ever found the murderer.
This is an unusual book. It is full of true facts about Irv Kupcinet. But the narrator of this book is a fictional character named Jed Rosenthal, a struggling author, and the grandson of a couple who were close friends with Irv and Essie Kupcinet. His grandparents mourned the death of Karyn with the Kupcinets, but their friendship ended suddenly and without explanation soon after Karyn’s death.
The book is not organized chronologically but a series of anecdotes cover what has happened to the Rosenthal family for the past 70 years. This book doesn’t really attempt to solve Karyn Kupcinet’s cold case. It does contain an abundance of Chicago references that appeal to a lifelong Chicagoan like me.
This book is largely the family history of three generations of Rosenthals. Their story is interesting and I found the whole book fast-moving and entertaining. Highly recommend to Chicagoans.
The gossip columnist is Irv Kupcinet, a true life Chicago legend. A man about town, he knew everyone in Chicago and loads of big name TV and movie stars. His life was jarred in 1963 by the mysterious death of his daughter, Karyn, found strangled in a hotel room in Hollywood. She was just 22 and had yet to make it big. No one has ever found the murderer.
This is an unusual book. It is full of true facts about Irv Kupcinet. But the narrator of this book is a fictional character named Jed Rosenthal, a struggling author, and the grandson of a couple who were close friends with Irv and Essie Kupcinet. His grandparents mourned the death of Karyn with the Kupcinets, but their friendship ended suddenly and without explanation soon after Karyn’s death.
The book is not organized chronologically but a series of anecdotes cover what has happened to the Rosenthal family for the past 70 years. This book doesn’t really attempt to solve Karyn Kupcinet’s cold case. It does contain an abundance of Chicago references that appeal to a lifelong Chicagoan like me.
This book is largely the family history of three generations of Rosenthals. Their story is interesting and I found the whole book fast-moving and entertaining. Highly recommend to Chicagoans.
July 6, 2025
Thank you to NetGalley for an advance copy of this book.
I am not sure what I want to say about this book. The underlying story of the death of Karyn Kupcinet was one that I was completely unfamiliar with. As a Chicagoan (but not a lifelong one) I didn’t have the degree of nostalgia for Irv that others might. I did like all the Chicago references (but wonder if it’s soooo Chicago that those unfamiliar with the city would like it as much). The parallel story of the relationship between the families was somewhat less interesting, although some insights were compelling. There’s a sub-story about the narrator and his relationships which was not that interesting to me.
All in all I enjoyed the book and now want to know more about the real-life aspects but so much left open.
I am not sure what I want to say about this book. The underlying story of the death of Karyn Kupcinet was one that I was completely unfamiliar with. As a Chicagoan (but not a lifelong one) I didn’t have the degree of nostalgia for Irv that others might. I did like all the Chicago references (but wonder if it’s soooo Chicago that those unfamiliar with the city would like it as much). The parallel story of the relationship between the families was somewhat less interesting, although some insights were compelling. There’s a sub-story about the narrator and his relationships which was not that interesting to me.
All in all I enjoyed the book and now want to know more about the real-life aspects but so much left open.
August 9, 2025
Sometimes audiobooks absolutely knock a book out of the park and highlight every good thing about it. And sometimes I think I need to have laid my eyeballs on the text to fully do it justice. I fear this might have been one of those books.
I very much enjoyed all the Hollywood of this story, but the celebrity references woven into the meat of the central plot got a little confusing for me.
The narration was almost a stream of consciousness, which can be challenging for me to follow sometimes even in print, so this story did get away from me a few times.
Overall, I think these were “me issues”, but this one just didn’t quite work for me. The writing was smart and had moments of humor, though, so don’t take my review as fact.
Most of this book is set in Chicago, a city I love visiting. What is a city (real or imagined), you love reading about?
I very much enjoyed all the Hollywood of this story, but the celebrity references woven into the meat of the central plot got a little confusing for me.
The narration was almost a stream of consciousness, which can be challenging for me to follow sometimes even in print, so this story did get away from me a few times.
Overall, I think these were “me issues”, but this one just didn’t quite work for me. The writing was smart and had moments of humor, though, so don’t take my review as fact.
Most of this book is set in Chicago, a city I love visiting. What is a city (real or imagined), you love reading about?
July 29, 2025
I received this ARC from NetGalley and the publisher - I want to thank them for the opportunity of reading it. It’s an interesting story: true crime meets fiction. The story takes on the mysterious death of minor actress, Karen “Cookie” Kupichek in 1963. Told from the perspective of a friend’s child, Jed Rosenthal, conspiracy theories abound including a possible connection to the JFK assassination. The book reads like a 1940’s film noir (think Edmund O’Brien in DOA) which lends itself nicely to story. While the mystery of Cookie’s death was never solved, the book gives lots of food for thought about possibilities.
August 12, 2025
Orner strikes again with a riveting, rule-breaking, genre-bending, and multi-textured new novel of generational ache. My full review: https://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/boo...
August 19, 2025
Amazing book. Works on so many different levels. Just loved everything about this from the plot to the setting to the characters. Deserves a second and third reading to pick up on all the different levels. Invokes Chicago both all the new in a way and few writers have.
September 11, 2025
I am sorry to say that this is one more book I found unbearable and couldn't continue listening to. I don't care about any of the novel's protagonists. I guess this book is really not for me. It might be for elderly male people from Chicago.
July 26, 2025
pretty fun murder mystery that generally works quite well. the mystery builds fine and the twists work wel. 4 stars tysm for the arc.
August 16, 2025
Wholly original, ripped from pages of history. In no way derivative but inspires associations with Doctorow.
August 21, 2025
Narrated by Robert Fass
September 1, 2025
Not terrible, but a little too disjointed and open ended for me. I might have liked it better if I’d read it in print instead of an audiobook.
September 11, 2025
Confusing and disjointed. Too literary for me. Had no resolution at the end. Definitely could have skipped this read and missed nothing
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