Gangster - Hardcover

Carcaterra, Lorenzo

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 034540100X ISBN 13: 9780345401007

Publisher: Ballantine Books, 2001

Synopsis

Fleeing his father and a shadowy past, Angelo Vestieri finds a second family in early twentieth-century New York's mob and rises to power, as he encounters dangerous betrayals and an abandoned boy in need of a father figure. By the author of Sleepers. 125,000 first printing.

About this title

Review:

It will come as no surprise to anyone who understands the derivative nature of filmmaking that Lorenzo Carcaterra's Gangster has been bought for a TV mini series. After all, how many times can you rerun all three parts of The Godfather? Here the author of Sleepers and Apaches provides a full accounting of the life of one Angelo Vestiere, told from the perspective of two people who witnessed it first hand: Gabe, the street kid who ultimately betrayed Angelo's hope that he would succeed him; and Mary, the woman who loved him. One knows a secret about the other, which isn't revealed until the book's final pages. But by that time the secret doesn't matter and sheds no more light on Angelo than the reader has gleaned in the previous chapters.

Angelo has few redeeming characteristics. As the protagonist of this sprawling novel of the rise of organised crime in America, he never earns the reader's empathy, despite Carcaterra's attempts to humanise his central character by presenting the "code of the gangster" as a believable rationale for Angelo's existence and his success in his chosen career. By far the more interesting thugs who people this book are Pudge, Angus McQueen and Ida the Goose, a trio of fellow gangsters the author pulls into Angelo's orbit. Despite their moral and ethical shortcomings, they are picaresque enough to have a certain raffish charm. But Angelo is no Don Corleone or even Tony Soprano. And while Carcaterra's a journeyman writer, he's not ready to inherit the mantle of the late (and in this case sadly lamented) Mario Puzo. --Jane Adams, Amazon.com

Review:

Carcaterra's unrelenting pace gives this sweeping saga a style all of its own -- Maxim

About this edition

• Publisher: Ballantine Books
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 034540100X
• ISBN 13: 9780345401007
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 376