Billy bathgate book5/8/2023 ![]() ![]() ![]() In his odyssey, Billy will learn about human nature as well as extortion and policy rackets he will travel to the upstate rural community of Onandaga where Schultz will be brought to trial by special prosecutor Thomas E. Equally a rollicking adventure and a cautionary tale, both parable of the prodigal son and poignant coming-of-age story, it is mesmerizing reading that soars from the shocking first scene of a gangland execution through episodes of horror, hilarity and sudden, deepening insights. ![]() The astonishing story of Billy's apprenticeship to Shultz and his education at the hands of the mobster's minions is related by Doctorow with masterful skill, grace and lucidity of prose, inspired inventiveness of scene and true-voiced dialogue. Resourceful, brash, daring and brave, the narrator understands that morality will have no influence in lifting him from his poverty by hitching his wagon to the mobster's star he can hope to provide his gentle, mad mother and himself with a way to rise out of their desolate existence. In the poorest part of the Bronx, in the depths of the Depression, a teenage, fatherless street kid who will adopt the name Billy Bathgate comes to the attention of his idol, master gangster Dutch Schultz. ![]()
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