The Blow-off: A Novel
“A gritty, satirical thriller that wonderfully echoes H.L. Mencken’s views on the American public. . . . Knipfel’s characters are delightfully pitch-perfect. . . .The Blow-Offis laugh-out-loud funny.”—John Wilwol,The Washington Post“[A] hilariously sardonic shake of the head at the media and the public's willingness, even outright desire, to get riled up over nothing in particular . . . Knipfel's writing has quite a bite.”—Keith Staskiewicz,Entertainment Weekly“Forget the Loch Ness monster. There’s a beast lurking by the Gowanus Canal, and he may be responsible for a crime wave. In this fun novel . . . every incident in the city is lain at his big, fictional feet.”—Billy Heller,The New York Post“An engrossing, hilarious novel that also has bite and wonderfully paced dialogue. Through Hank,Knipfel—a Brooklyn-based former newspaper columnist himself—makes insightful and humorous observations on a number of annoyances threatening to make the world a beastlier place.”—Michelle Jones,The Dallas Morning News“Knipfel takes hilarious aim at the ravening New York media and what Knipfel portrays as the desperately thin veneer of reason and public order in the Big Apple . . . dark, and quirky humor animates all his writing.”—Booklist“Knipfel gets to wax poetic on the (d)evolution of journalism and the media’s appetite for sensationalism. But he does it with the same pointed humor that madeThese Childrensuch a treat. A funny and subversive caper novel that speaks the language of days gone by.”—Kirkus Reviews“Knipfel balances the ugly, the frightening, and the unseemly to give readers a morbidly playful story with a surprising amount of heart.”—Publishers Weekly“You read [Knipfel] for the spell under which his prose can place you. At this, he has only gotten better with time.”—Roy Edroso,The Village Voice