Billy Bathgate: A Novel (Random House Reader's Circle) - Softcover

Doctorow, E.L.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0812981170 ISBN 13: 9780812981179

Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2010

Synopsis

To open this book is to enter the perilous, thrilling world of Billy Bathgate, the brazen boy who is accepted into the inner circle of the notorious Dutch Schultz gang. Like an urban Tom Sawyer, Billy takes us along on his fateful adventures as he becomes good-luck charm, apprentice, and finally protégé to one of the great murdering gangsters of the Depression-era underworld in New York City. The luminous transformation of fact into fiction that is E. L. Doctorow’s trademark comes to triumphant fruition in Billy Bathgate, a peerless coming-of-age tale and one of Doctorow’s boldest and most beloved bestsellers.

About this title

Review:

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.

From the Publisher:

The bestselling, brilliantly crafted story of crime and corruption by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Ragtime, Loon Lake, and World's Fair.

About this edition

• Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0812981170
• ISBN 13: 9780812981179
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 336