First published 2025
Kelsey McKinney combines journalism, cultural analysis, and personal reflection to examine our relationship with gossip. The pandemic stripped away casual social exchanges, leaving McKinney craving the stories and updates she once gathered over drinks with friends. This longing sparked her wildly successful Normal Gossip podcast, which reaches millions of listeners. Now McKinney turns her analytical lens on gossip itself. She investigates why society treats gossip as morally suspect and examines how it gets used as a weapon against marginalized groups. McKinney questions our sense of entitlement to celebrity private lives and explores how pop culture shapes our understanding of hearsay. She celebrates the art of eavesdropping while wrestling with fundamental questions about truth and storytelling. McKinney balances scholarly rigor with the genuine pleasure of sharing secrets. She reveals what drives our hunger for inside information and challenges assumptions about whether truth actually matters in our daily exchanges of whispered revelations.
Genres: non-fiction, 21st-century, journalism, academic, cultural-studies
Vibes: analytical, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: examination-of-societal-norms, personal-journey
288 pages · Hardcover · Grand Central Publishing