Waiting for Britney Spears - by Jeff Weiss (Paperback)

About the Book

"A gonzo account of Britney Spears's meteoric rise and almost equally iconic fall"--

Book Synopsis

AN LA TIMES BESTSELLER. Named a Most Anticipated Book by People, Vulture, A.V. Club and OurCulture. One of Glamour's Best Summer Beach Reads.

"Like a J.D. Salinger novel rolled in Hunter S. Thompson's hallucinogen dust." --Ann Powers, author of Travelling: On the Path of Joni Mitchell

"[Waiting for Britney Spears] transformed and transported me." ―Hanif Abdurraqib, author of There's Always This Year

A frenetic, gonzo account of Britney Spears's historic rise and equally tragic fall told by an iconoclastic music journalist.

America, 2003: A country at war, its shiny veneer beginning to crack. Von Dutch and The Simple Life dominate. And on the cover of every magazine, a twenty-one-year-old pop star named Britney Spears. Tracking her every move for a third-tier gossip rag in Los Angeles was an unknown young writer taking whatever job he could while pursuing his distant literary dreams. He'd instead become an eyewitness to the slow tragedy of a changing nation, represented in spirit by "the coy it-girl at the end of history."

Years later, after finally establishing himself as a celebrated journalist, Jeff Weiss presents Waiting for Britney Spears, a gonzo, nostalgic, and "allegedly true" recounting of his years as a tabloid spy in the lurid underbelly of Los Angeles. Weiss follows America's sweetheart through Vegas superclubs and Malibu car chases, annulled marriages and soul-crushing legal battles, all the way to Britney's infamous 2007 VMA performance. As Weiss lives through the chaos leading to Britney's conservatorship, he observes, with peerless style, cringe-inducing fashion waves, destructive celebrity surveillance, and a country whose decline is embodied by the devastating downturn of its former golden child.

With the narrative flair that established him as a singular chronicler of modern pop culture, Weiss goes for broke in Waiting for Britney Spears, a descent into a neon hall of mirrors reflecting our obsession with fame, morality, and the mystery of what really happened to the last great pop star.

Review Quotes

"Weiss excels at evoking the darkness and frivolity of the 2000s world he slinks through . . . Reading the book can feel--this is a good thing--like mainlining the sugar at the bottom of a Sour Patch Kids box." ―Alexis Soloski, The New York Times

"Incredibly entertaining and frequently insane . . . a kinetic, extravagantly written fever dream." ―Allison Stewart, The Washington Post

"Weiss takes a reader on a journey through Britney's story, offering vivid scenes of her meeting and marrying various ineligible men, navigating paparazzi chases, and trying to be a good mom, to differing degrees of success . . . Despite its source material, the book itself doesn't feel exploitative; there's a deep love and respect for its titular star that comes through." ―Elisabeth Garber-Paul, Rolling Stone

"It's delectable, daring and just begs to be read poolside." ―Lizz Schumer, People

"Weiss does a masterful job of navigating our celebrity-obsessed world and the complexities that come with it. I, for one, could not put it down, especially thanks to all the Y2K references that made the inner 2000s kid in me jump for joy." ―Chantal Waldholz, Glamour

"More than an incredible and uniquely intimate account of Britney's dismantlement by the paparazzi, Waiting dares to speak about coming-of-age in the bust of the dot-com boom: it sucked . . . I could not put it down; I had to know what happened next, even when I already knew. But beyond being a damn good story, Waiting's major accomplishment is its ability to enthrall without a sacrificial lamb--or woman . . . Down to the line level, Waiting is a fun house for language, mirrors throwing back words that have been warped with new and inventive meanings yet are nonetheless crystal clear." ―Reece Sisto, Los Angeles Review of Books

"Among the recent glut of books picking over the wreckage of mid-2000s tabloid culture, Jeff Weiss's fictionalized memoir offers the tightest close-up on Britney's breakdown . . . Weiss magnifies the hard surfaces of LA in the 2000s." ―Chal Ravens, London Review of Books

"What makes Waiting for Britney Spears so compelling is not the brilliant writing, which has elements of Hunter Thompson, Norman Mailer, Joan Didion, and Tom Wolfe, but also its moral center . . . Weiss's writing is poetic and electrifying." ―Mark Judge, The Washington Examiner

"The ultimate künstlerroman on Britney . . . Weiss acknowledges his, and by extension, our, complicity in crafting a profuse need for wanton celebrity breakdowns, the pressure building toward the dam till it bursts open, never to be contained again . . . Waiting For Britney Spears at its heart is a love letter to Britney, both literally and figuratively." ―Eli Schoop, Cleveland Review of Books

"An exhilarating trip through the ups and downs of Britney Spears's career . . . In colorful, entertaining detail, Weiss lucidly explains how the paparazzi capitalized on the chaos of Spears's life to give the public the chaos they demanded . . . As much a thrilling chronicle of Spears's life as it is a perceptive examination of celebrity culture, this captivates." ―Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"[A] powerhouse debut . . . a rollicking, wild ride with buzzing energy and plenty of humor." ―Bookpage

"A gimlet-eyed excavation of Britney Spears' ascent to pop stardom and the insatiable celebrity machine that consumed her . . . Weiss proves himself a formidable talent with a keen eye for capturing the pulse of the moment, a writer whose future work will be well worth anticipating." ―Kirkus Reviews

"Waiting For Britney Spears is a singularly thrilling and inventive reading experience, acting as a vivid time capsule, a sometimes hilarious and sometimes devastating rush of landscapes and people and places within them, but always an incredibly immersive read, that transformed and transported me." ―Hanif Abdurraqib, author of There's Always This Year

"I had no idea that one of America's premier hip-hop journalists began his career chasing pop sensations through the seedy VIP areas of the West. The tale Jeff Weiss weaves of his gossip-rag adventures, focusing on the elusive unicorn Britney Spears, reads like a J.D. Salinger novel rolled in Hunter S. Thompson's hallucinogen dust. Unlike most previous gonzo culture chroniclers, Weiss has compassion for his subjects -- he cares about Spears as a person even as he strives to understand her as an object of mass (and, for him, personal) desire. File this one next to The Day of the Locust on your True Tales of Hollywood shelf." --Ann Powers, NPR music correspondent and author of Travelling: On the Path of Joni Mitchell

"Waiting for Britney is the very definition of "smart escapism" 400-plus vertiginous and Cheeto-dusted pages of neon Los Angeles and vintage Bonnie Fuller-era tabloid sensationalism that reads like a juicy longform magazine story that you never want to end. The writing practically bounces with a Neptunes beat. I loved it." --Cat Marnell, author of How to Murder Your Life

"Gonzo writer Jeff Weiss roams through the gaudy paradise of pop music pursuing the enigmatic Golden Star Britney Spears from Mouseketeer to Sex Goddess as she rises to the height of fame, crashes low, rises higher. In prose that seems to mime the frenetic rhythms of pop, Weiss guides us with sardonic humor through a cartoon Las Vegas wedding, a surreal orgy in Technicolor at the Playboy Mansion, sex, drugs, booze, scandals and more scandals. Out of that erotic chaos, Weiss discovers a poignant lament, a yearning for something more than what is found in the world of luxuriant excess. Within that orbit, Weiss defines, movingly and unforgettably, the stunning creation known to the world as Britney Spears." ―John Rechy, author of City of Night

"A gonzo ride through the twisted kingdom of millennial Hollywood. Young and hungry Jeff Weiss chooses his own adventure, sallying forth in his quest to outsmart greedy monsters, placate sleazy managers and rub shoulders with b-boy paupers, all while in search of the Pop Princess herself. A witty, whip-smart book I couldn't stop reading." ―Kate Flannery, author of Strip Tees: A Memoir of Millennial Los Angeles

About the Author

Jeff Weiss is a music writer and cultural critic whose work has appeared in The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, Pitchfork, The FADER, and many other outlets. A former columnist for LA Weekly, he is the cofounder of The LAnd magazine and the founder of the pioneering hip-hop blog Passion of the Weiss, along with its record label, POW Recordings. He lives in Los Angeles.