The Story Behind Slow Down by Lee Matthew Goldberg

Slow Down is being reissued with a new publisher so it was written a long time ago. I’d been fired from my first job after college at a production company that was quite abusive, and I put that into the

start of the novel. I heard the song “Yellow” by Coldplay and imagined if many people had the same tattoo of a yellow circle. Without a job, I would write every day in the park, and it made me realize that writing was what I wanted to do full-time.

After finishing, I sent the book out to agents but it really wasn’t ready. So I stuck it in a draw and wrote a different book that landed my agent. We tried sending Slow Down out, but editors found the main character too “mean and unsympathetic”. It wasn’t until we found an indie publisher that liked the book for that very reason. It was exciting to have Slow Down be my debut and now three novels later, it’s even more exciting for it to be re-released and find a whole new audience. 

The theme of the novel is that the characters are moving at too fast a pace and will have to slow down to save their lives. They exist in a wealthy, Hollywood bubble that rewards them for their bad behavior. But the novel is a love story too between the two main characters, Noah and Nevie. To be together they must give up all the glitz and fame and escape to a place where they can just live simply. The question is, Do they make it out alive?

About the Book

How far would you go to make your dreams come true? For budding writer and filmmaker Noah Spaeth, being a Production Assistant in director Dominick’s Bambach’s new avant-garde film isn’t enough. Neither is watching Dominick have an affair with the lead actress, the gorgeous but troubled Nevie Wyeth. For Noah’s dream is to get both the film and Nevie in the end, whatever the cost. And this obsession may soon become a reality once Dominick’s spurned wife Isadora reveals her femme fatale nature with a seductive plot to get rid of her husband for good.

Slow Down, a cross between the noir styling of James M. Cain and the dark satire of Bret Easton Ellis, is a thrilling page-turner that holds a mirror up to a media-saturated society that is constantly searching for the fastest way to get ahead, regardless of consequences.

Here’s what readers are saying about Slow Down!

“Slow Down is a frenetic first novel…full of unedifying characters scrambling for the elusive, perhaps imaginary, brass ring.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Lee Matthew Goldberg writes like a young Bret Easton Ellis doing a line of uncut Denis Johnson off the back of a public urinal. Memorable in the best possible way, also mostly illegal, Goldberg’s Slow Down is a mad man’s tour of Manhattan’s vices, follies, and ultimate betrayals.”
–Urban Waite, author of The Terror of Living and Sometimes the Wolf
“What would happen if one of Raymond Chandler’s 1940’s femme fatales were to join forces with one of Jay McInerney’s enfant terribles? Lee Matthew Goldberg wrings every delectable trope imaginable out of this mashup while still managing a fresh spin. A writer to watch out for.”
–David Kukoff, author of Children of the Canyon
“Slow Down starts fast and gets faster quick, gunning through yellow streetlights on its way to a full collision with your shattered soul. Lee Matthew Goldberg takes on the American Zeitgeist in this stunning debut.”
–Stephen Jay Schwartz, LA Times bestselling author of Boulevard and Beat
“Slow Down is a brilliant rush of a work charting the rise and fall of Noah and other pretentious losers. Savor this book.”
—Foreword Reviews
“Dark and hard-boiled writing that grabs you by the throat. Slow Down is one of those rare novels that’s so good you want it to go on forever!”
–Nick Pengelley, author of Ryder: An Ayesha Ryder Novel
“The plot takes off…there’s no denying it’s fun to watch rich snots destroy themselves.”
—Booklist
“Goldberg’s portrayal of the New York demimonde is one of the book’s strengths and brings to mind Bret Easton Ellis’ Less Than Zero. He also succeeds in marshalling a complicated plot.”
—CrimeFictionLover.com

ORDER YOUR COPY

Amazon → https://amzn.to/3dmv8UU

About the Author 

Lee Matthew Goldberg is the author of the novels THE DESIRE CARD, THE MENTOR, and SLOW DOWN. He has been published in multiple languages and nominated for the 2018 Prix du Polar. The second book in the Desire Card series, PREY NO MORE, is forthcoming, along with his Alaskan Gold Rush novel THE ANCESTOR. He is the editor-in-chief and co-founder of Fringe, dedicated to publishing fiction that’s outside-of-the-box. His pilots and screenplays have been finalists in Script Pipeline, Book Pipeline, Stage 32, We Screenplay, the New York Screenplay, Screencraft, and the Hollywood Screenplay contests. After graduating with an MFA from the New School, his writing has also appeared in the anthology DIRTY BOULEVARD, The Millions, Cagibi, The Montreal Review, The Adirondack Review, The New Plains Review, Underwood Press, Monologging and others. He is the co-curator of The Guerrilla Lit Reading Series and lives in New York City.

WEBSITE & SOCIAL LINKS:

Website: http://www.leematthewgoldberg.com
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/LeeMatthewG
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/leemgol
Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/leematthewgoldberg