Look, I'm Gone

by James Howard Kunstler

November, 1963, the week before Thanksgiving. Twelve-year-old Jeff Greenaway, recently exiled from Manhattan to Ponsonby Hall, a New Hampshire prep school "for boys who behaved badly," wins big in a clandestine poker game. The next day, President John F. Kennedy is murdered in Dallas. The Ponsonby boys are sent home early by train for the holiday - and the president's funeral.

 

Back at home with his parents on East 79th Street, and restless over the tragic events playing out on TV, Jeff ventures out into the city on his own, an explorer in the underbelly of Times Square and its colorful denizens. He falls hard for the teenage ingenue Kathy Kaine, star of the Broadway hit The Wayward Family Singers, who lives unsupervised in the historic Bomoseen Hotel uptown. It's a first romance for him, but not for her.

 

Unable to swallow the official story about JFK's assassination, he stakes out the Russian Mission to the United Nations on 68th Street and Park Avenue, taunting the KBG goons who guard the entrance until Ambassador Zorin himself takes Jeff for a mind-bending ride into Central Park to explain how the world really works.

298 pages, Paperback

Published November 1, 2025

About the author

James Howard Kunstler (born 1948) is an American author, social critic, and blogger who is perhaps best known for his book The Geography of Nowhere, a history of suburbia and urban development in the United States. He is prominently featured in the peak oil documentary, The End of Suburbia, widely circulated on the internet. In his most recent non-fiction book, The Long Emergency (2005), he argues that declining oil production is likely to result in the end of industrialized society and force Americans to live in localized, agrarian communities.

Source: Wikipedia

Reviews

[P J · Rating 5 out of 5]

Main Character: Jeff Greenaway, 12 years old
Period: Late November 1963
Locations: New York City and the "Deep Woods" of NH and VT
Occupation: "Reform School" (a very expensive, private one) "scholar"
Hometown: Manhattan New York
Jeff's ....
Modus Operandi: Gamblin' and Ramblin'
Psychiatric profile: Highly intelligent, precocious, manipulative, good tipper
Hobbies: Running away from home
Old Bad Habits: Creative and spontaneous lying, smart-mouthing, worrying his parents
New Bad Habits: Card playing, smoking and drinking, worrying his parents even more
Parents: Bob (high class lawyer), Evelyn (homemaker and socialite)
New Favorite Book: Catcher in the Rye
New Obsessions: Who killed the President, JFK? Talking to J.D. Salinger
Hates: Phonies.

What's to like about this book:
The author's smart, intelligent wit and masterful story telling skills keep you engaged.
The author's deep knowledge of the NYC's culture, people, places in the early 1960s make this novel, almost, historical non-fiction. James Howard Kunstler's weaves those writing skills and knowledge to tell us about Jeff's struggles as a pre-teen, practicing, too well, to be an adult.
A "fellow inmate" at Jeff's boarding school in New England tells Jeff to read J. D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye. Some thereafter, Jeff reads voraciously after being gifted a copy from "Yvonne," a dancer at a dance hall in NYC. Jeff has a vast knowledge of NYC, and his curiosity, aided by an unrestricted use of lies, lets Jeff open doors that he should not have gone through, all financial fueled by a lucky streak of winning card hands at the expense of his boarding school "scholars." Broadway plays, movies, restaurants, libraries, museums are all in his adventures. His "what would Holden [Caulfield] do" inspires Jeff, already a risk-taker, to go to places and do things even a boy raised "religion free," wouldn't normally do, at least in the 1960s.
The author puts a smile on the face of any reader with a knowledge of the 1960s NYC--movies, plays, current events, TV shows (for example, one of Jeff's favorites, Channel 9, "WOR's Million Dollar Movie", radio station DJs and the music being played. Want to know the cost for so many items and services in 1963, read it. The characters he introduces...so many, so entertaining, from all walks of life. Uncle Ira, in brief cameo, a wealthy, sports documentarian, is one of my favorites. One favorite quotes is from Jeff's Mom's to Jeff about gambling: "That's what Edgar Allan Poe did at West Point. It ruined him for life. That and all the drinking."
Mr. Kunstler makes us need the Thesaurus occasionally. His long-time displeasure with suburbia (he has written so many books of fiction and non-fiction) yields us this quote: "A whole new kind of shopping architecture was smearing itself over the landscape like a scrofulous infection." But he paints many lovely pictures for us of small-town life and people in New Hampshire and Vermont, probably a reflection of his thoughts about his current locale.
Jeff is coping in a world without Ritalin. Is he, the gambler, ever going to learn when to "fold 'em"? Or will Jeff's worry about becoming a "ne'er-do-well," be his fate?
Be prepared to smile and remember 1963 in The Big Apple, especially, if you are "of an age." If you are younger, find out, possibly, in part, how your Boomer parents, grandparents, or older friends or acquaintances "got that way." For many Boomers, Jeff could have been a role model, at least at the 12-year-old stage.
[Look, I'm Gone!|239834064]
I have received a free, advanced readers copy. I have not been compensated by the author for my review.

[Rod · Rating 5 out of 5]

Twelve-year-old Jeff Greenaway, a young man experienced in the arts of roguery beyond his years, is an inmate at Ponsonby Hall, a prep school for such boys in New Hampshire. The boys playing poker the night of November 21, 1963, have no idea that they are living in an era that will spawn all manner of conspiracy theories for decades (if not centuries) and Jeff is about to thrust himself into the center of the action in more ways than one.

James Howard Kunstler's protagonist wanders through the streets of New York City during his Thanksgiving Holiday, trying his best to follow in the footsteps of his new-found hero, Holden Caufield. He challenges Russian diplomats (thought to be responsible for JFK's assassination), falls for a beautiful young actress, and lives life on his own terms.

Kunstler's descriptions of New York, the music, and zeitgeist of the 60's - post JFK, are all on target and, as usual, the writing is finely tuned, the work of a composer of rare aptitude. While Jeff seems to be mature beyond his years, remember that he has rebelled for years before reading Catcher in the Rye and now has even more reason to ask himself, what would Holden do?

The story starts slowly but soon you're on a wild ride to the denouement - the meeting with Salinger himself. Jeff has questions for the recluse author of "Catcher" but the repartee soon changes tone.

In the end, Jeff is wiser about love. literature, and authors and the reader is the winner in this coming-of-age tale. It is a very enjoyable read - I recommend it.

[Steven Clark · Rating 5 out of 5]

I know Jim Kunstler and have always followed his works, and this novel is an exciting and humane read. He tells of Jeff Greenaway, a troubled 12 year old whose problems get engulfed in the Kennedy assassination and this world of 1963 is presented graphically and with a tart guide to Jeff's coming to terms with life and humanity. While he is enthralled by Catcher in the Rye, Jeff is caught in a series of initiations into his world, leading to his seeking experiences with a number of people, from a taxi dancer to Kathy Kaine, a young actress whom he is smitten with seeing her on Broadway, but eventually sees her as she really is. Jeff, unlike Holden, matures and finds the world forced on him and he struggles to find meaning, finally going to Cornish, New Hampshire to meet Salinger...it's less a master teaching wisdom to Jeff than Dr. Frankenstein meeting his monster, and Kunstler cleverly poses what is wisdom and what is manhood, and how can a young man grasp it and advance. All of this is in a wonderful series of vignettes and dialogues that are a downbeat catechism for the 1963 world that is now ending, and Jeff must make his way out of it. Look, I'm Gone is a great follow-up to Kunstler's memoir Young Man Blues, and a funny, thoughtful guide to the getting of wisdom.

[Jim Hogue · Rating 5 out of 5]

Look I'm Gone is the story of an intelligent, precocious, can't-stay-out-of-trouble twelve year old boy. His life at a school for troublesome boys and at home in New York City is driven in part, by the influence of Holden Caulfield of The Catcher in the Rye. Look, I'm Gone will be a particular pleasure to those who experienced a literary world populated by Bartleby the Scrivener, The Boys from Syracuse, The Third Man, and Million Dollar Movie (that brought us Fred and Ginger, A Christmas Carol, The 39 Steps, and so many other great movies). It's a bewildering world for him in 1963, with the assassination of JFK by Allen Dulles and company or that other guy who was murdered by Jack Ruby.

Look, I'm Gone is a wonderful read, nostalgic or otherwise.

[Barbara Dubois · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. It was genuinely funny, and as someone who grew up in Manhattan, it brought back so many places and moments I hadn’t thought about in years. I laughed out loud more than once, and a few parts even made me misty-eyed.

The characters feel real and relatable, like people you’ve met or could meet, and that’s what pulled me in. Kunstler’s humor is dry but warm, and he has a great way of showing the everyday messiness of life without making it heavy. It’s honest, sharp, and very human. I enjoyed every page.

[Bill Whyte · Rating 5 out of 5]

Super fun read with a bunch of nostalgia and call outs from a bygone age. I was engrossed from the beginning and loved the throwback scenes in old New York City. The descriptions allowed me to feel and smell the scenery from Central Park all the way to Vermont. This book has a little bit of everything from Catcher in the Rye to the CIA. I would definitely recommend it!