Only Ed Koch could have written Mayor. It is the

liveliest, most gripping, most outspoken and

most authentic book ever written about govern-

ment. As such, it is sure to become a classicm but

it is much more as well. It is the frank, feisty, no-

holds-barred account of what it s like to run the

greatest city in the world, written with the

irrepressible honesty, anecdotal humor and

tough-minded compassion that make the Mayor

mand the city he governs--unique. Here is the

day-by-day inside story of how Koch turned the

City around from the brink of bankruptcy and

brought it back to solvency and health. Mayor!s

an unapologetic celebration of New York City and

the American urban experience--its cultural

diversity, vitality, multiplicity and inexhaustible

potential.

Most political figures write their memoirs

after they leave office, but Ed Koch has (typically)

chosen to write his in the white heat of the

political fray--and produced the frankest and

most revealing book ever written about politics.

It s about his first five years as Mayor, but it takes

the reader far beyond New York to tell us how

government, from the streets to the White

House, actually works.

Ed Koch, as the whole nation knows, is a man

who speaks his mind--whether it s standing up

to the entrenched bureaucracies, dealing with

minorities, speaking out on Israel or negotiating

single-handed with the Congress and the Presi-

dent of the United States. Now, in Mayor, he

pauses in midstream, as one of the most power-

ful and significant political figures in the country,

to tell, with typical uninhibited candor, the story

of his political life to date.