Gangster - Softcover

Carcaterra, Lorenzo

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0743207203 ISBN 13: 9780743207201

Publisher: Ballantine Books, 2001

Synopsis

Five CDs, 6 hrs.
performance by Joe Mantegna

The powerful prologue sets the tone. Gabe, the narrator of the novel, is visiting an old man—his uncle, Angelo—at the hospital. The uncle is dying a lonely and solitary death, abandoned by his family, deserted by everyone but Gabe. As Gabe keeps his sad vigil, a woman, Mary, enters the hospital room. He has never seen or heard of her before—but she knows an awful lot about him and even more about Angelo. She tells Gabe that there's much he should know. And as she begins to recount the real story of Angelo's past—and as Gabe, in his own first person voice, tells his own story as it intersects with Angelo's—Gabe learns not only his family history, he confronts important truths about who he is and what he's going to become.

Part One is the story of the making of a powerful New York mobster—Angelo Vestieri. In a shocking opening in Sicily, Angelo's father must make a decision about his eldest son. The family then escapes to America (a scene of a fire on their boat is harrowing and indelible). As Angelo adjusts to his new life, he, along with his best friend Pudge, discovers what must be done to survive: skirt the law as a child, break the law as a teenager, then, as he grows up, become the leader of the law-breakers. His story unfolds against the backdrop of New York from the early part of the century to the early 1930's: the gang wars, the criminal mentality, the relationships between gangsters and their women, the loyalty between men, the moral codes that are embraced or discarded. Part One ends with a tragedy that occurs in Angelo's life, one that drives him further along the path of a hardened gangster with one goal only: to win.

Part Two picks up Angelo and Pudge's story 30 years later. They are at the top—and they must face one last gang war. This is where Gabe enters the story as Angelo's surrogate son. Angelo and Pudge teach the boy everything there is to know about being a gangster. And, as the action unfurls—and there is a LOT of action—Gabe must ultimately decide whether or not to follow in the footsteps of the men he loves or join the safer, and less exciting, world of the non-gangster.

The book comes full circle, dealing with Angelo's last days—and one final truth that Gabe discovers about himself and his past.

About this title

Review:

It will come as no surprise to anyone who understands the derivative nature of filmmaking that Lorenzo Carcaterra's newest has already been bought for a TV miniseries. 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 firsthand: 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 organized crime in America, he never earns the reader's empathy, despite Carcaterra's attempts to humanize 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

From the Inside Flap:

Love. Violence. Destiny. These powerful themes ricochet through Lorenzo Carcaterra's new novel like bullets from a machine gun. In Gangster, he surpasses even his bestselling Sleepers to create a brutal and brilliant American saga of murder, forgiveness, and redemption.

Born in the midst of tragedy and violence and raised in the shadow of a shocking secret, young Angelo Vestieri chooses to flee both his past and his father to seek a second family--the criminals who preside over early 20th century New York. In his bloody rise from soldier to mob boss, he encounters ever more barbaric betrayals--in friendship, in his brutal business, in love-- yet simultaneously comes to understand the meaning of loyalty, the virtue of relationships, and gains a perspective on the lonely, if powerful, life he has chosen.

As the years pass, as enemies are made and defeated, as wars are fought and won, the old don meets an abandoned boy who needs a parent as much as protection. By taking Gabe under his wing and teaching him everything he knows, Angelo Vestieri will learn, in the winter of his life, which is greater: his love for the boy he cherishes, or his need to be a gangster and to live by the savage rules he helped create.

A sweeping panoramic with riveting characters, a unique understanding of the underworld philosophy, and a relentless pace, Gangster travels through the time of godfathers and goodfellas to our own world of suburban Sopranos. But this is more than just an authentic chronicle of crime. Setting a new standard for this acclaimed author, Gangster is a compassionate portrait of one man's fight against his fate--and an unforgettable epic of a family, a city, a century.

About this edition

• Publisher: Ballantine Books
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0743207203
• ISBN 13: 9780743207201
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 382