In 1990, journalist David Blum got backstage access to the life and death of The Falls, a downtown Manhattan restaurant that captured the 1980s in all its extravagant excess. Its owners--a tanned, Brahmin barkeep and a handsome Irish firefighter from Queens--partnered with movie star pal Matt Dillon to cater to New York's most glamorous models, actors, and writers. Flash in the Pan captured in hilarious detail the quick decline and disastrous fall of The Falls, and has become a classic cautionary tale for anyone who might harbor the fantasy of opening a restaurant.

David Blum is the editor of Kindle Singles, the storefront for high quality longform writing on Kindle. He was previously the editor in chief of The Village Voice and has written for New York magazine, Esquire, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, and The New York Times Magazine. Flash in the Pan, first published in 1992, was his first book.