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	Mohrbooks Literary Agency Sebastian Ritscher
Original language
English
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Fiction & Related items

THE SPECTATORS

Jennifer duBois

A searing examination of our fascination with the private lives of those in the public eye, and the way we choose what to see in the people we love.

Controversial talk show host Mattie M. has made his fame by shining a light on the most outrageous and grotesque secrets of society, and exposing them on live TV. But for all his prominence, the man behind The Mattie M. Show remains in the shadows, a mystery to those who work alongside him and the millions of viewers who watch him at home. But when a school shooting shocks the nation, and the two students responsible identify themselves as regular Mattie M. viewers, the TV personality and his staff are dragged into the harsh glare of public scrutiny, and the secrets of Mattie's past as a brilliant aspiring politician in a crime-ridden New York City begin to push their way to the surface.

And who is Mattie M., really? Told through the alternating perspectives of two people who see him most closely, THE SPECTATORS considers, but never answers, that question. Semi, a playwright whose affair with mayoral candidate "Matthew Miller" sparked a scandal that ended Mattie's political career, watches from a distance as his former lover is once again thrust into an unforgiving spotlight. Cel, Mattie's beleaguered publicist, is tasked with navigating a media firestorm to save the reputation of a man she doesn't fully understand, and who might not even want to be saved. These two narrative threads entwine, following a vibrant ensemble cast through the evolution of New York City: the activism and riots of the 1960s, the devastating AIDS crisis of the 1980s, and the gritty cynicism of the 1990s. And at the center, the always-inscrutable figure of Mattie reminds us that no matter how much we think we know about the people around us, we can never fully know anyone at all.

duBois's writing is pellucid, her characters unforgettable, and her unique voice at once heartrending and hilarious. THE SPECTATORS is a biting satire of tabloid culture, but it's also a bighearted meditation on identity, loss, and the timeless power of memory. She really is one of those masterful writers whose words effortlessly get under your skin.

Jennifer duBois is the recipient of a 2013 Whiting Writer's Award and a 2012 National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 award. Her debut novel, A PARTIAL HISTORY OF LOST CAUSES, was the winner of the California Book Award for First Fiction and the Northern California Book Award for Fiction, and was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Prize for Debut Fiction. Her second novel, CARTWHEEL, was the winner of the Housatonic Book Award for Fiction and was a finalist for a New York Public Library Young Lions Award. Her writing has appeared in such publications as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Playboy, The Missouri Review, Salon, The Kenyon Review, Cosmopolitan, and Narrative. A native of western Massachusetts, she currently teaches in the MFA program at Texas State University.

Available products
Book Published 2019-04-02 by Random House
Book Published 2019-04-02 by Random House

Comments

DuBois spans some 30 years of New York City history, moving between the queer gestalt of the 1970s and the television-junkie culture of the 1990s..a powerful novel.

Every page is so brilliant and funny, and every character so irreverent, that you'll hardly realize what you have in your hands is a passionate love story unfolding against the backdrop of a lost world. As you weave among ghosts, the witticisms turn into laments, then prayers, and through it all the writing is so damn good. Powerful, page-turning, vital.

Jennifer duBois is a wonderful writer -- funny and humane, generous and wise -- and her newest novel, THE SPECTATORS, is a searing and moving examination of our culture's obsession with celebrity and the public persona. With penetrating wit and psychological acuity, duBois has created one of the most complicated and memorable characters I've read in years. A brilliant and propulsive book -- I loved it.

[An] excellent new novel. Much of the novel is set in 1993, with flashes backward to 1969, the '70s and the '80s. It involves a controversial talk show host, a school shooting and a group of gay men, all friends, moving from around the time of the Stonewall uprising until the early '90s hell of the (pre-triple-cocktail) AIDS crisis.

A Whiting Award winner and Pen/Hemingway nominee, duBois writes an especially timely novel exploring the power of the media to foment chaos and the culpability of the public that validates the discord by watching.

An enigmatic talk show host is thrust into a spotlight he definitely did not want when a group of teens responsible for a mass shooting claim to be his biggest fans - and the past he wishes would stay hidden begins to come back to the surface. Covering three decades of American culture, including the 90s pop culture wars and the AIDS crisis of the 80s to the liberated 70s, this may be duBois' most ambitious work yet.

Elegant, enigmatic, and haunting.

This contemporary tragedy, shot through with comic energy and a quiet, radical hope, has arrived at precisely the right moment. Dubois is a brilliant writer, and I could read her sentences forever.

Alternatively tender, funny and heartbreaking, The Spectators is a thrilling high-wire act that deftly weaves together the New York gay rights movement and AIDS crisis with the inner-workings of tabloid talk shows. Combining a symphonic structure with unflinching psychological insight, this gorgeous novel explores the ways in which we betray and redeem each other - how we tell each other's stories and, in doing so, discover our own. Jennifer Dubois is one of this generation's singular talents, and The Spectators is a masterpiece.

The Spectators is a beautifully written, even aphoristic novel... but its greatest strength is its characterization ... brilliantly conceived and...utterly unforgettable.

Another breathtaking novel from one of our most brilliant writers. No one writes about the contradictions of American society and the foibles of the human heart with such incisive wit and sensitivity. The Spectators is a tense and propulsive exploration of how easily - through inattention, through incremental compromise - we can let our best intentions slip away. As the novel's secrets are uncovered, duBois reminds us that to truly see, without apology or artifice, is itself an act of compassion. This novel pulses with intelligence and heart.

Brazil: Rocco

Jennifer duBois is one of a handful of living American novelists who can comprehend both the long arc of history and the minute details that animate it. The Spectators is yet another triumph in an impressive oeuvre: a brave and painfully vivid excavation of the AIDS crisis in New York that, with its fine prose, breathes life back into an era of death.

The Spectators, the third novel by the well-regarded author Jennifer duBois, often thrums with vibrancy and echoes divisive current events as it covers a timeline from the late 1960s to the early 1990s. It also gains momentum when the plot takes a sudden, sinister twist - threat of blackmail, a shooter's potentially explosive letter, a secret taping.. a searingly felt remembrance. Read more...

Jennifer duBois is an immense talent, and THE SPECTATORS is her ambitious and assured novel which strives to answer the question: what tragedies deserve to be told? Each sentence is more beautiful than the next, every line of dialogue sharper and funnier. Her writing about 1980s New York and the AIDS crisis broke my heart. I savored it all.

The Spectators is a jarring reminder of a not-long-ago paradigm in which we could be shocked and shamed by daytime talk shows and mass shootings, when America still put its collective cultural faith in art and entertainment and the seeming genesis of it all: New York City. Only a writer with the easy, exquisite intellect of Jennifer duBois could render the slow debasement of individuals and the groups they comprise with such authenticity and compassion, and make the experience of reading it all such a pleasure. I was awed and humbled by every page.

The Spectators is magnificent, a richly textured epic suffused in heartbreak yet spring-loaded with vitality. Jennifer duBois is among the finest writers of our generation and this is her most accomplished novel.