4 "club kids, rappers and workaholic" stars !!!

Thank you to Netgalley, the memoirist and Little A books. This was released April 2020. I am providing an honest review.


Mr. Gatien is a good old French Canadian boy with some aboriginal heritage from Cornwall Ontario.
Through chutzpah, hard work, some good instincts and a hunt for wealth and possibly fame become one of the greatest entrepreneurs of nightclubs and cultural trends in the 1980s and 1990s. He started with a club in Cornwall and then moved to Miami, Atlanta, New York, Chicago and London. He produced films and broadway shows and became wealthy and successful. He brought rap to the forefront in New York, enjoyed partying with the queers and supported those awful little club kids. He was acquaintances with Madonna, Cher, all the big name rappers and Andy Warhol. Work work work. Three wives and five kids. Homes galore. Periodic drug misuse. An insatiable hunt for more creative conquests and somebody who was bored very easily. Grandiose for sure. Morally grey perhaps. Telling the truth ? not sure but certainly knows how to weave a good yarn from growing working class poor to the heights of success and wealth.

Until Rudy Giuliani and some crooked cops brought him down. He fought those charges and won but ended up in jail for two years for tax evasion.

A well done memoir for sure. Some version of the truth. A lot of mythmaking. So much fun for the reader.

Hey babe...put on your best shoes...we going dancing !

When I was granted request to review The Club King, I was thrilled and settled in ready to read juicy, behind-the-scenes scoop on what happened behind the velvet rope at Peter Gatien's nightclubs. I dove in wanting to know which socialites or rock stars were snorting lines at the Palladium or the Limelight so maybe it was my expectations that were unrealistic. The book details his rise and his smart business dealings and promotions savvy, and that was interesting and is to be admired - but for me it was slow and just didn't keep my attention. I think it's a great read for aspiring entrepreneurs and it's not a bad book, just don't expect the gossip, the name dropping, the wild party stories.

The rise and fall of Pete Gatien. Club kids, club drugs, sex, drugs, drugs, and drugs.

This book felt a bit like a vanity project but honestly, what wasn't? Limelight was the craziest place I've ever been, I didn't expect anything less from this book.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review this book.