Billy Bathgate: A Novel - Softcover
In 1930's New York, Billy Bathgate, a fifteen-year-old highschool dropout, has captured the attention of infamous gangster Dutch Schultz, who lures the boy into his world of racketeering. The product of an East Bronx upbringing by his half-crazy Irish Catholic mother, after his Jewish father left them long ago, Billy is captivated by the world of money, sex, and high society the charismatic Schultz has to offer. But it is also a world of extortion, brutality, and murder, where Billy finds himself involved in a dangerous affair with Schultz's girlfriend.Relive this story through the title character's driving narrative, a child's thoughts and feelings filtered through the sensibilities of an adult, and the result is E.L. Doctorow's most convincing and appealing portrayal of a young boy's life. Converging mythology and history, one of America's most admired authors has captured the romance of gangsters and criminal enterprise that continues to fascinate the American psyche today.
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Review:
A wonderful addition to the ranks of American boy heroes . . . Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer with more poetry, Holden Caulfield with more zest and spirit . . . The kind of book you find yourself finishing at three in the morning after promising at midnight that you ll stop at the next page. "New York Times Book Review
"
A modern American masterpiece . . . Doctorow takes up the legacies of Fitzgerald and Cheever and adds to them a savage and erotic splendor of his own. John le Carre
Indelible in its fierce energy, its relentless irony, its rawness. "Philadelphia Inquirer
"
Riveting . . . mesmerizing . . . unforgettable. "Time
"
Enthralling. "Los Angeles Times"
"
"A wonderful addition to the ranks of American boy heroes . . . Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer with more poetry, Holden Caulfield with more zest and spirit . . . The kind of book you find yourself finishing at three in the morning after promising at midnight that you'll stop at the next page."--New York Times Book Review
"A modern American masterpiece . . . Doctorow takes up the legacies of Fitzgerald and Cheever and adds to them a savage and erotic splendor of his own."--John le Carre
"Indelible in its fierce energy, its relentless irony, its rawness."--Philadelphia Inquirer
"Riveting . . . mesmerizing . . . unforgettable."--Time
"Enthralling."--Los Angeles Times
About the Author:
"
A modern American masterpiece . . . Doctorow takes up the legacies of Fitzgerald and Cheever and adds to them a savage and erotic splendor of his own. John le Carre
Indelible in its fierce energy, its relentless irony, its rawness. "Philadelphia Inquirer
"
Riveting . . . mesmerizing . . . unforgettable. "Time
"
Enthralling. "Los Angeles Times"
"
"A wonderful addition to the ranks of American boy heroes . . . Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer with more poetry, Holden Caulfield with more zest and spirit . . . The kind of book you find yourself finishing at three in the morning after promising at midnight that you'll stop at the next page."--New York Times Book Review
"A modern American masterpiece . . . Doctorow takes up the legacies of Fitzgerald and Cheever and adds to them a savage and erotic splendor of his own."--John le Carre
"Indelible in its fierce energy, its relentless irony, its rawness."--Philadelphia Inquirer
"Riveting . . . mesmerizing . . . unforgettable."--Time
"Enthralling."--Los Angeles Times
E. L. Doctorow's works of fiction include Welcome to Hard Times, The Book of Daniel, Ragtime, Loon Lake, World's Fair, Billy Bathgate, The Waterworks, City of God, The March, Homer & Langley, and Andrew's Brain. Among his honors are the National Book Award, three National Book Critics Circle awards, two PEN/Faulkner awards, and the presidentially conferred National Humanities Medal. In 2009 he was shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize, honoring a writer's lifetime achievement in fiction, and in 2012 he won the PEN/ Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction, given to an author whose "scale of achievement over a sustained career places him in the highest rank of American literature." In 2013 the American Academy of Arts and Letters awarded him the Gold Medal for Fiction. In 2014 he was honored with the Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction.
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- PublisherPerennial
- Publication date1994
- ISBN 10 0060975954
- ISBN 13 9780060975951
- BindingPaperback
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