Get excited, fiction fans! We are thrilled to welcome back one of Alta Live’s first-ever guests, author Peter Orner. His new novel, The Gossip Columnist’s Daughter, examines a lifelong friendship that ends abruptly and without explanation, along with parenthood, grief, Hollywood, the mafia—and murder. It’s based on real events and a family story Orner has carried around for years. He’ll sit down with Alta Live and special guest moderator and author (and Orner fan) Tod Goldberg to discuss this exciting new book from one of this generation’s most interesting and talented writers. Trust us. You do not want to miss this one.

About the guest:

Peter Orner is the chair of the English and Creative Writing Department at Dartmouth College and the author of seven acclaimed books, including finalists for the PEN/Hemingway Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the NYPL Young Lions Fiction Award, and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. His work has appeared in the New Yorker, the Paris Review, the Believer, and Best American Short Stories; among other laurels, he’s been awarded four Pushcart Prizes, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a Rome Prize.

About the moderator:

Tod Goldberg is the bestselling author of 15 books, including the acclaimed Gangsterland quartet — Gangsterland, Gangster Nation, The Low Desert: Gangster Stories, and Gangsters Don’t Die — which have been published in a dozen languages and have won or have been a finalist for the Hammett Prize, the Southwest Book of the Year, the Strand Critics Award, the Reading the West Award, the International Thriller of the Year, and many more. His previous books include Living Dead Girl, a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize; The House of Secrets, which he wrote with Brad Meltzer; and the popular Burn Notice series. His short fiction and essays appear widely and have been honored with selection in Best American Mystery & Suspense and Best American Essays. Goldberg is a professor of creative writing at the University of California, Riverside where he founded and directs the Low-Residency MFA in Creative Writing & Writing for the Performing Arts. His next book, Only Way Out, will be released in fall 2025 from Thomas & Mercer.

Here are some notable quotes from the event:

  • On how the book began: “I’ve been going to old family stories forever in my work, but this time, I wanted to tell this story which was kicked around my family, or actually not kicked around—it was a story that wasn’t talked about. And that was a relationship that my own grandparents had with this figure, Irv Kupcinet, a columnist for the Chicago Sun Times. As far as gossip columnists go and society columnists go, he was quite important in his day. And my own family’s connection to him was always murmured about.”
  • On Karyn Kupcinet’s death: “The book became about a mysterious break in a friendship, not a mysterious case of a death, in my own mind. I have my own opinion about whether or not Karyn Kupcinet was murdered or not, but it became less relevant to me as I was telling the story, and more about the collateral damage, like what happens after something catastrophic happens in your life.”
  • On organizing the book: “I couldn’t figure out what to put where. There’s sections, and I had them constantly moving around. I was worried about momentum, and I tend to write short chapters—that’s kind of my thing—and I wanted space between them. I want a reader to be able to breathe and think. And so I experimented a lot.”

Check out these links to some of the topics brought up this week.