To Die For

• FILM TIE-IN: This book is the basis for a critically acclaimed film directed by Gus Van Sant and starring Nicole Kidman, Matt Dillon, and Joaquin Phoenix. Kidman won a Golden Globe for her performance.
• BASED ON A TRUE STORY: Maynard based the plot on the infamous Pamela Smart murder case.
• BESTSELLING AUTHOR: Maynard’s books, including her memoir At Home in the World and the novel Labor Day, have sold in the hundreds of thousands of copies.
• VOICE-DRIVEN FICTION: The story is ingeniously narrated by twenty-four different characters in a series of short monologues.
• VISIONARY SUBJECT MATTER: The theme of a dangerous obsession with celebrity has only grown more relevant in the twenty years since To Die For was first published.

“A seductive page-turner” about a murderously ambitious cable-news star by the New York Times–bestselling author of Labor Day (The New York Times Book Review).

Local weather reporter Suzanne Maretto craves nothing more than to transcend life at her suburban cable television news station and follow in the footsteps of her idol: Barbara Walters. When she concludes that her unglamorous husband is getting in the way of her dream of stardom, the solution seems obvious: Get rid of him. She seduces a fifteen-year-old admirer, Jimmy, and persuades him to do her dirty work. Mission accomplished, Suzanne takes to the airwaves in her new role as grieving widow, in search of a TV deal. If that means selling Jimmy down the river, she’s ready.

Maynard’s brilliant, funny, and groundbreaking novel—adapted by Gus Van Sant into the cult classic movie of the same name, starring Nicole Kidman—was first published in 1992 before the era of manufactured stardom and the phenomenon of televised murder trials as entertainment. The book still stands as a razor-sharp satire of celebrity-fixated culture and the American obsession with TV—a novel that imagined the phenomenon of reality television before its creation, with alternately bone-chilling and hilarious accuracy.