Welcome to Litsy!

A frenetic account of Britney Spears�s historic rise and equally tragic fall, from Jeff Weiss, LA's Hunter S. Thompson. America, 2003: A country at war, its shiny veneer beginning to crack. Von Dutch and The Simple Life dominate. And on the cover of every magazine, a twenty-one-year-old pop star named Britney Spears. Tracking her every move for a third-tier gossip rag in Los Angeles is a young writer who for all practical purposes let's call Jeff Weiss, who took whatever job he could to pursue his dream of being a �serious� writer. He'd instead become a firsthand witness to the slow tragedy of a changing nation, represented in spirit by �the coy it-girl at the end of history.� Years later, after finally making it as a celebrated cultural critic, Weiss presents Waiting for Britney Spears, a gonzo, nostalgic, and mostly true recounting of Britney's rise and fall during his years in the tabloid underbelly of Los Angeles. Weiss follows America�s sweetheart through Vegas superclubs and Malibu car chases, annulled marriages and soul-crushing legal battles, all the way to Britney�s infamous 2007 VMA performance. As Weiss lives through the years leading to Britney�s conservatorship, he observes, with peerless style, cringe-inducing fashion waves, a destructive culture of celebrity surveillance, and a country whose decline is embodied by the devastating downturn of its former golden child. With the narrative flair that established him as a singular chronicler of modern pop culture, Weiss goes for broke in Waiting for Britney Spears, a roaring K�nstlerroman of celebrity, obsession, morality, and the last great pop star.