If you like intelligent and well-written historical fiction and New York stories about organized crime during the 1930s, check out Billy Bathgate, by E. L. Doctorow. Published in 1989, Billy Bathgate won both the National Book Critics Circle award for fiction and the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. The 1991 movie stars Dustin Hoffman, Nicole Kidman, Loren Dean, Bruce Willis, Steven Hill and Steve Buscemi (Boardwalk Empire). Billy Bathgate is a fifteen-year-old boy from the Bronx who becomes a protégé of the notorious Dutch Schultz, a hot-head New York mobster who made his money during the 1930s running beer and controlling the numbers racket. Billy is a fictional character, but he moves with the very real Schultz and his advisers, including Schultz’s genius accountant, Otto “Abbadabba” Berman, hit man Lulu Rosenkrantz and lawyer Dixie Davis. With no father and a mother who is not altogether with it, Billy looks to Schultz and Berman to show him how to make it in the world. His initiation into the gang begins with a chilling murder at sea, during which one of Schultz’s associates, Bo Weinberg, has his feet set in a tub of cement.But Billy has joined the gang at the end of Dutch Schultz’s reign over organized crime in his part of New York. Narrated through Billy’s voice, the story tells of Schultz’s wildly unpredictable and violent temper and of his upcoming tax evasion trial. Drew Preston is a young and beautiful society woman who is difficult to read. She becomes Schultz’s companion and a dangerous temptation for Billy. Beating the tax charges might not be enough to keep Schultz out of trouble. Schultz’s end is near when his political connections fall through, and his plans to kill Thomas Dewey, a U.S. attorney and prosecutor, are unsupported.Billy’s reflections are both street-smart and deep and this point of view presents a surprising narration. He is naïve and sweet and crude and eloquent at the same time. His reader appeal and respect is in his innocence and in his ability to take care of himself. And Doctorow has a way of making Schultz’s illegal and violent henchmen seem fatherly at times. He presents them as professionals who take extreme pride in what they do, from neatly rolling up the cuffs of the doomed Weinberg to shooting precisely, to performing elaborate acrobatics with numbers.I enjoyed reading Billy Bathgate because the author does a great job showing the positives and obvious negatives of these complex characters and historical figures. Billy also makes some terrific philosophical and spiritual observations about this life. Here are a few of my favorites:When Billy describes the sounds of an unexpected murder, he says, “…and when its echoes died away I heard the silence of the sudden subtraction from the universe of a life…” p. 196As he reflects on the importance of money, Billy says, “It didn’t matter how the money stopped flowing, in or out, the result was equally disastrous, the whole system was in jeopardy, just as, if the earth stopped turning, according to what a teacher explained to us once in the planetarium, it would shake itself to pieces.” p. 280And when he thinks about the men who died at the Palace Chophouse, he remarks, “What happened to the skills of a man when he died, that he knew how to play the piano, for instance, or in Irving’s case to tie knots, to roll up pant legs, to walk easily over a heaving sea?” p. 312I like Doctorow’s writing style. He uses long sentences, with lots of commas and they often take up an entire page. But they always return to the central point and I think they are easy to follow. The book has the inevitable and uncomfortable violent scenes, but a story like this could not be told without them, so they serve a necessary purpose.This is a very entertaining and educational read and it describes a unique period of time in New York City. And it’s so well-written that it is just as great now as it was twenty-five years ago!
Y'know there's lots of books out there where someone inserts a fictional character in with real life events or time periods to learn ya some things about how these things actually came to pass and add a human element to history blah blah blah. It's kind of a thing, particularly in postmodern fiction, and while it's not one that I'm always completely enamored with, it can definitely be a good mode of exploring certain themes about how we canonize historical figures, how certain historical events come to happen, or even just a way to humanize what would otherwise just be a bunch of dates and facts. That being said, I don't feel like Doctorow really took full advantage of it here with "Billy Bathgate".Which is not to say it's not a fun read! Hell, you've got sex, money, violence, and compelling prose to spare! However, though it was a thrilling enough ride, I have to say I felt a little cold on it by the time I finished the last page. There are themes to unpack here for sure, weighty ones even. One can discuss Oedipal father figure stuff, one can look at the novel as a bildungsroman, one can look at it as an examination of the social conditions that led to the rise and fall of gangsters in 1930s era New York, one can do a lot of things with it. Unfortunately, one has a hard time pulling these things together in any sort of satisfying way. I'm no slave to dramatic catharsis or anything, but when Doctorow constructs a narrative as traditional as the one in "Billy Bathgate", one at least expects threads to not be left hanging or sharp turns to be made that wrap things up with zero warning, as if Doctorow has gotten bored with that direction and wants to hit a reset button.Still, it's not an overly long book, so one can hardly begrudge it as a "waste of time" or anything like that, and if you're someone particularly interested in American gangster stories it might even appeal to you a bit more than it did for me. It's a perfectly amiable work, and the quality of prose is good enough for me that I'd definitely check out another of Doctorow's novels, but overall, it didn't feel like much of an accomplishment.
What do You think about Billy Bathgate (1998)?
Great coming of age novel. Billy Bathgate is reminiscent of Huck Finn. Both teenagers struggle with the mores of their environments and succeed (more or less) in attaining some degree of moral growth. Billy is more successful than Huck, because Twain allows Huck's final adventure, the one aimed at freeing the slave Jim from captivity, to degenerate into racist drivel. In the last 50 pages of Twain's novel, Jim is reduced to the passive importance of a bed post. The boys, Huck and Tom Sawyer, pay so little attention to Jim's humanity, even as they plot to release him, that he might as well be a black stone.Billy, on the other hand, never quite surrenders to mafia culture. He idolizes Dutch Schultz without becoming so much like him that he cannot leave the life behind. Still, it takes the murder of Schultz to give Billy enough courage (or fear) to move on and grow up. Good for him! And good for E.L. Doctorow for giving us such a fun, enlightening look at NYC and mob life in the 1930s! Doctorow can be faulted, however, for the sappy way his novels ends. Billy has become fully rehabilitated, an upstanding member of society, a great guy - all of these things in spite of having worshipped at the alter of murdering thugs - when, as a final reward for good behavior, Doctorow presents him with a beautiful baby son, the love-child of a brief (and very secret) affair Billy managed to carry off with Dutch's gorgeous, and extremely classy, girl friend. Doctorow's great novel suffers from a sweetly sentimental conclusion.
—OsakaMark
In this book, a fifteen year old kid admires mob life. One day, while this kid is juggling for his friends, the great mobster Dutch Schultz rolls up in a big Packard, steps out and, upon seeing Billy juggling five objects, smiles and calls young Billy over. He pulls out a wad of bills, peels one off and hands it to the boy.It is this moment that defines young Billy. After this encounter, Billy ingratiates himself with Dutch Schultz and works to become, gradually, his protege, doing menial jobs at first, but soon gaining the boss's trust and taking part in the darker aspects of gangster life.In this book, E.L. Doctorow does a masterful job of portraying the road that an ambitious and brazen young man might have followed in the gang world of New York in the 1930s. And it is this boy, Billy Bathgate (a moniker he gives himself to protect his identity), that is the center point of this book. Doctorow's main character isn't a vile person like the gangster he idolizes. Neither is he a hero. Billy's ambitions are rooted in his poverty and though he considers the morality of his actions and of those around him, he seldom judges them. He understands that the acts he witnesses and partakes in are a necessary aspect of gangster life. Yet, there is also a lingering sensitiveness to his character, something that doesn't quite jibe with the gangster life he's chosen. The hint of this inner softness in him is what makes his point of view, and thus the book, so interesting. A more sensitive Billy and the book would lose its veracity, while a colder Billy would make this just another gangster story without any of the heart.
—Amar
Doctorow's book is a challenging read. First, the story is told from the point of view of Billy, a 15-year-old boy. Punctuation and wording are appropriate to the speaker. Second, the story is not told in chronological order, and I had some trouble figuring out the chronology of the events. These aspects of the text didn't discourage me from reading the book, but if you're looking for a fast and easy read, this book is not for you.Billy Behan is a 15-year-old boy who gets involved with Dutch Schultz's gang in the New York of the 1930s. The book starts with the killing of Bo Weinberg, one of Dutch's top men, who betrayed his boss. The story of Bo's death is a touch point that Billy returns to several times in the course of the novel. Billy knows that life with the mob is dangerous, and he realizes he's connected to Dutch for life--there will be no escape. And Dutch is a touchy man, at his best. He kills people for imagined slights. Billy has to negotiate a dangerous world. Back at home, his mother is losing her mind. He worries about what he should do with his mother, how he can support her, how he can provide for her in the event Dutch's temper explodes one day. Despite his fear of Dutch's temper, Billy admires and even loves the man. Throw into the mix Dutch's moll, Drew Preston, whom Billy falls in love with. Billy is dealing with far more than a 15-year-old should. That he lives to tell his story is miraculous.
—Alisa
