Party Girls:
Review by Mike Strobel, Toronto Sun columnist, philanthropist, author of Small Miracles: The Inspiring Kids of Variety Village
TULIP AND OTHER PARTY GIRLS
Ottawa political life in the late 1970s and 1980s had a sleepy sleaziness to it, before the internet embittered everything.
It was a great place for a budding newspaperman. I worked in the circulation department of the Ottawa Journal to pay for Carleton journalism school, then migrated to the Journal newsroom, where my fellow rookie was Rose Simpson.
After all these years, Rose has written a book about that era. Party Girls follows the sweaty, angst-ridden careers of two young women insiders in the colliding worlds of media and politics in the capital.
It’s a novel, though I recognize a lot of Rose in the protagonists. Many politicians and media honchos ring a bell, too, especially those named, say, Mike Duffy or Lloyd Robertson. (Was Lisa LaFlamme born by then?)
Tulip (Mikes’s Norwegian Forest Cat) and I even make a brief appearance (Page 33), though in fact my plucky Norwegian forest cat did not arrive until 2012 and has never been anywhere near Ottawa.
Party Girls includes all the ingredients of politics: Sleaze, betrayal, booze, money, vanity, arrogance, power, sex and, most of all, ambition.
It’s great gaudy fun, even if you’re not in it.
Another great review from Don Newman, CBC legendary newsman
Party Girls is a great read about one of the most exciting times in Canadian politics and journalism . In fact reading it is as much fun as living it was !!!!
Party Girls is now available for free on Kindle Unlimited!