THE GOSSIP COLUMNIST'S DAUGHTER

In the wake of the JFK assassination, another death shakes Chicago.

Before “true crime” and “cold case” became cultural bywords, the real-life mystery surrounding Karyn “Cookie” Kupcinet obsessed her hometown. She was the 22-year-old daughter of Irv “Kup” Kupcinet, whose daily newspaper column and late-night TV gabfest had tagged him with the title “Mr. Chicago.” A struggling starlet since moving to LA, Cookie had experienced a series of setbacks—a shoplifting conviction, an abortion, a romantic breakup. When she was found dead in her apartment, was it suicide or murder? Could it have had something to do with the Kennedy assassination? The Kupcinets insisted there was foul play, though no suspects were charged and the case remains officially unresolved. Six decades later, the case is mostly forgotten, but it obsesses the narrator of this novel. Jed Rosenthal is a struggling author, academic, and father. He takes a deep dive into this mystery, at least partly because there’s so little else going on in his life. Plus, it’s personal for him—his grandparents had been best friends with the Kupcinets, until Cookie’s death. Another mystery? It seems that Jed has never forgotten nor forgiven the way the Kupcinets cut the Rosenthals off. Within the novel, literary allusions abound, from Chicago (including Saul Bellow, whose Humboldt’s Gift featured a fictionalized Kup) and beyond (James Ellroy in particular takes a beating). The novel also abounds with names that Chicagoans of a certain age will recognize, the sort of names so often boldfaced in Kup’s column. As Jed muses, “A friend of mine, a novelist, once said that minor characters don’t know they’re minor. Doesn’t this apply to us all?” Because all these characters are pretty minor in the grand scheme of things. Including Jed and Cookie. Even Kup’s luster has dimmed since his death. But in conjuring Chicago as it existed before he was born, Jed attempts to show how everything connects, how the pieces of this puzzle—his family’s and his city’s—might somehow fit together. And maybe even amount to something.

A wild ride and an immersive Chicago novel, in which the town threatens to toddle off its axis.