A humor columnist faces his own death alongside the death of a once-heralded PROFESSION
Tim Grobaty was promoted to columnist at his newspaper back when it was still a glamorous and coveted job. In I’m Dyin’ Here: A Life in the Paper, the author means two things: He’ll likely die at the job (unless he lives too long) that he’s spent nearly four decades doing, and at the same time his profession, too, is seeing its last days.
• Gold-medal winner of 2017 Foreword INDIES Book Award
• Silver-medal winner of 2017 Independent Publishers Book Award
• Long Beach Mayor’s Book Club selection
"A humorous love letter to a dying vocation."
— Kirkus Reviews
PRINT $16.99 / EBOOK $12.99
Weaving together personal history and a selection of columns written over the course of his storied career, Grobaty offers readers a rare glimpse into the inner workings of a dying breed: the local columnist. With everyday life, fatherhood, holidays, suburbia, and random encounters with animals serving as fodder for his column, Grobaty reveals his sources of motivation and vulnerability, all the while struggling to maintain relevance in a rapidly changing industry.
Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia chose I’m Dyin’ Here as his pick for a citywide book club established in the summer of 2016 called the Mayor's Book Club. He invited the city to read Grobaty’s book and then invited readers to join him at a live event at the Beverly O’Neill Theater on Sept. 15 of that year.
“I just loved I’m Dyin’ Here," Garcia said, calling it "an honest and extremely funny look at life in the newspaper business and here in Long Beach."
Now an editor for the Long Beach Post, Grobaty’s award-winning, offbeat and always-funny column ran in the Long Beach Press-Telegram for decades. Grobaty rose through the ranks of copy boy, news reporter, features writer, music reviewer and, finally, the much-hailed position of columnist.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tim Grobaty has won numerous awards, including being named the Best Columnist in the Western United States by Best in the West, and is the author of Growing Up in Long Beach: Boomer Memories from Autoettes to Los Altos Drive-In; Location Filming in Long Beach; and Long Beach Chronicles: From Pioneers to the 1933 Earthquake. In I'm Dyin' Here, his most autobiographical book to date, he tells the inside story of a life lived in newspapers and offers his reflections on the end — both as a person and a newspaperman. A native of Long Beach, Grobaty lives (he still lives!) in the city with his wife, daughter, and two pups.
On Twitter: @grobaty.
PRAISE FOR THE BOOK
"Tim Grobaty takes on a career's worth of trying to make sense of news papering in stories that are wry, honest, and mostly true from the big small town of Long Beach, California. The local weirdness is therein abundance, but just to show that all places, however ordinary, will surprise and mystify. The tragedies of an ordinary life are there too,with whatever redemptive power they can have. There is a lot to lament about the folding of newspapers like the one Grobaty still writes for.The worst is the loss one day of funny, humane, and unpretentious voices like his."
— D.J. Waldie, author of Holy Land: A Suburban Memoir
"A humorous love letter to a dying vocation."
— Kirkus Reviews
"A truly wonderful book. Both the fascinating history of a man, and the radical shifts in the newspaper world. It's beautifully written--by turns both humorous and equally moving. I wish I could give it a higher rating [than five stars]."
— Rob Roberge, author of Liar
"Tim Grobaty, one of these great city-side columnists [has written] a book-length meditation on the current 'optimistic' state of the print journalism industry in which he works."
— David Kipen, founder of Libros Schmibros and book critic for KPCC's Take Two
"Over the years, a newspaper columnist develops a very special relationship with their readers: They become a favorite neighbor, a good friend,maybe even a family member. They don't deliver news; they tell us about life. Long Beach is lucky to have had Tim Grobaty in that role all these many years. He is the Bard of Big Town."
— Russ Parsons, author of How to Pick a Peach: The Search for Flavor from Farm to Table
"One wanders through the passages of Grobaty's book like an accidental tourist in the town you thought you already knew. Often, discovering things a self-preservationist type wouldn't even think to investigate without a 'cop across the street' by his side."
— Thomas Wasper, author of Famous Killers for Early Learners
"Read this book! It will make you laugh; it will tear you up; it will make you think; and it will cause you to consider your existence. Grobaty's book, by itself, illustrates why we can't lose print journalism. His slices of life lead you to ponder and appreciate the whole pie."
— Bob Foster, former mayor of Long Beach.
