“Juicy. . . . Dowd has a knack for asking questions that go right up to the edge of intrusion but instead yield thoughtful, intimate insights.”—Los Angeles Times

“A pleasure. . . . Throughout, her experienced journalist’s knack for colorful quotes moves her subjects beyond their talking points. She seasons the pieces with additional reporting by those in her subjects’ orbits.”—Kirkus Reviews

A sly and chatty collection of the revered Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times columnist’s most notorious celebrity profiles.

Shining a white-hot spotlight on America’s famous, from Hollywood legends to Broadway stars to media moguls, Notorious is a captivating assortment of Maureen Dowd’s most compelling style features and profiles. Using her signature wit and incisive commentary as a scalpel, Dowd dissects influential cultural elites, including:


Leading Hollywood women from Uma Thurman to Jane Fonda to Greta Gerwig
Silver screen foxes such as Paul Newman, Idris Elba, and Ralph Fiennes
Funny people like Tina Fey, Mel Brooks, and Larry David
Fashionistas from Andre Leon Talley to Ann Roth to Tom Ford
And media and tech titans like Elon Musk, Bob Iger, and Peter Thiel

Notorious is the perfect antidote to our current political malaise and an intimate, gossipy romp through the culture of celebrity from a legend in American journalism.