The Club King: My Rise, Reign, and Fall in New York Nightlife

Written by Peter Gatien

Narrated by Braden Wright

A behind-the-scenes look at the meteoric rise and stunning takedown of a nightclub empire, by the man who held the reins.

Limelight, Tunnel, Club USA, and Palladium—the cutting-edge, insanely successful, and notoriously decadent clubs that dominated New York City’s entertainment scene, their influences reverberating around the world. Across four decades, a single mysterious figure stood behind them all: Peter Gatien, the leading impresario of global nightlife. His clubs didn’t follow the trends—they created movements. They nurtured vanguard music acts that brought rock, house, grunge, hip-hop, industrial, and techno to the beautiful ones who showed up night after night to tear the roof off every party. But as Peter and his innovative team ramped up the hedonistic highs, Rudolph Giuliani was leading a major shift in the city. Under the guise of improving New York City’s “quality of life,” the club scene was targeted—and Peter Gatien’s empire became a major focus of the administration.

In this frank and gritty memoir, Peter Gatien charts the seismic changes in his personal and professional life and the targeted destruction of his nightclub empire. From Peter’s childhood in a Canadian mill town to the freedom of the 1970s, through the excesses of the 1980s and the ensuing crackdown in the 1990s, The Club King chronicles the birth and death of a cultural movement—and the life of the man who was in control of every beat.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brilliance Audio
• Release date: Apr 1, 2020
• ISBN: 9781799750307

Peter Gatien

Peter Gatien created, owned, and operated groundbreaking nightclubs over the span of four decades. In his early twenties, he opened his first club, the Aardvark, in his hometown of Cornwall, Ontario. He went on to helm an unbroken string of successful megaclubs, including Limelight in New York City, Atlanta, Miami, London, and Chicago, as well as Manhattan’s Palladium, Tunnel, and Club USA, and CiRCA in Toronto. Gatien was also the executive producer of the film A Bronx Tale. Today he splits his time between Toronto and New York City, enjoying a home life with his wife, Alessandra, his four children, and his two grandchildren.

Reviews for The Club King

[Kelly Brown · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Fantastic and engrossing book with an exceptional narrator. I love biographies!

[lea neckel · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

it’s a super interesting book (even tho i don’t think he’s being completely honest) the stories are truly inspiring

[lukegoldstein · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

"The Club King" brings the beginning and the end.

This memoir regales us with first-person sights and sounds from the highlights of Peter’s club kingdom. But, as happens in so many kingdoms, people on the outside eventually see it as a threat and from that point life no other purpose than to bring the kingdom down. How he kept his sense of humanity through it all may be the most glamorous thing of all.

[penny_l-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Fascinating and well written.A behind the scenes look at the life of nightclub legend Peter Gatien. Starting with his childhood in Canada, this story reveals the motivating factors that led Gatien to build an empire. Armed with a vision, determination and luck, he put his ideas into the right places, with the right people, at the right time to create iconic nightclubs in 3 countries. That determination, however, was no match for a well connected Mayor with a political ax to grind.Such an amazing story, and the style in which it is written kept me engrossed start to finish. I'd love to see it produced as a limited series!*Thank you Amazon First Reads, Peter Gatien and Little A Publishing for the early reading opportunity.