Helpful Score: 3
I couldn't put this book down. I read it the first time when it was originally published and it was just as good, or better the second time. D. L. Doctorow is a marvelous author and actually paints visual images with his long, run-on sentences. A good read about a teenage boy who becomes a part-time operative in Dutch Schultz's gang in the l930's. Loved it!!
Interesting story that is similar to the movie Goodfellas in the first part. Well written.
Fascinating portrait of a past era. A great character portrait.
What an entertaining look at humanity, charimsa, fear, power and NYC's mysterious history.
"E. L. Doctorow's novel, winner of the 1990 Pen/Faulkner and National Book Critics Circle Awards, extends his trademark extension of history into fiction that began with The Book of Daniel and Ragtime, as well as the evocation of collective dreams that haunted Loon Lake and World's Fair. Billy Bathgate is the brazen boy who insinuates himself into the inner circle of the Dutch Schultz gang to become good-luck charm, apprentice, and finally protege to one of the most notorious murdering gangsters of his time. Like an urban Tom Sawyer in a world of horrors, Billy has come down from the tenement streets of the East Bronx to live in the glamorously evil Depression underworld that Schultz hasd created." (Daedalus review)
Great! Great! Great! This book is the reason I read. Doctorow puts you in the scene. Once started the only way out is through the last page!!!
In the Bronx of the 1930s, 15-year-old Billy Bathgate hooks up with a legendary mobster, Dutch Schultz. Schultz becomes an unlikely surrogate parent to the boy, introducing him to the ways of the world and training Billy to follow in his footsteps. After Billy falls for Schulz's latest girlfriend, he begins to question the actions of the mob he was so eager to join. As he seeks to protect the young woman, he gains strength in following his own heart and makes a courageous passage from boyhood to adulthood. E.L Doctorow won the 1990 PEN/Faulkner Award for this novel.
This book starts slow but is an interesting detailed look at Billy and how he ended up where he did.
This book starts slow but is an interesting detailed look at Billy and how he ended up where he did.
Boy growing up in Bronx during Depression deals with crime.
I didn't read this book.
