Synopsis
The real man emerges from behind the legend in a portrait of the notorious gangster that includes the little-known story of his older brother--a lawman and Prohibition officer--and brings to life the 1920s and 1930s in America. 40,000 first printing. Tour.
Reviews
In 1925, at the age of 26, Al Capone became the most powerful, most visible racketeer in Prohibition-era Chicago. Bergreen ( As Thousands Cheer: The Life of Irving Berlin ) has done a prodigious amount of research. He traces Capone's childhood in Brooklyn, his entry into organized crime and his violent rise to the top of the Chicago crime world. He focuses on Capone's battles with law-enforcement agencies that eventually resulted, in 1931, in his conviction on tax evasion charges and imprisonment at Alcatraz. Bergreen concludes by describing the collapse of Capone's health and his death from syphilis in 1947. He also writes of the colorful characters who were involved with Capone, including Eliot Ness (made famous by TV's The Untouchables ) who Bergreen claims had little to do with Capone's arrest. The author's zeal to cover every aspect of Capone's life with many anecdotes and sidebars, unfortunately dulls his narrative. But crime buffs may appreciate his hard work. Photos not seen by PW. BOMC alternate; author tour.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
``I have never before written about someone who differed so sharply from his reputation as Al Capone,'' concludes Bergreen (As Thousands Cheer: The Life of Irving Berlin, 1990, etc.) in this shallow life of Public Enemy No. 1. As Bergreen tells it, Capone was scapegoated for America's failure to abide by Prohibition and was a victim of anti-Italian prejudice. This is far too reductionist. Bootlegging was just one part of Scarface Al's underworld empire, which also included gambling, prostitution, and massive corruption of Chicago's police, politicians, and press; and while there was surely a glut of anti- Italian sentiment, most Italians managed not to be driven by it into a life of crime. To be fair, Bergreen does not deny that Capone was awash in blood, and he has discovered medical files detailing the mobster's cocaine use and syphilis-induced megalomania. He also mentions government files on an older brother who changed his name and became a legendary Prohibition agent, and cites scores of people who testify to Capone's impulsive generosity. Repeated statements about moral complexity, however, explain nothing about why Capone became infamous even in brawling Chicago. Bergreen notes that he conducted more than 300 interviews, but mere quantity is inadequate without standard biographical procedures. For instance, he claims that Capone desperately yearned to forsake racketeering while he sought sanctuary from a murder rap in Lansing, Mich., but the source for this information is cited pseudonymously. Moreover, Bergreen never attempts to prove a Capone confidant's claim that Eliot Ness was on the take (in fact, he portrays Ness as a skirt-chasing, alcoholic publicity hound). Even in an age of revisionism that has raised the stock of the likes of Jimmy Hoffa, Bergreen's insistence on a kinder, gentler Scarface is breathtaking chutzpah--the kind the mobster might have employed. (16 pages b&w photos, not seen) (Book-of-the-Month Club alternate selection; author tour) -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
In the wake of Robert J. Schoenberg's Mr. Capone (LJ 8/92), called "the most detailed biography of Capone published to date" by LJ's reviewer, comes an even more detailed account based on extensive research and interviews. Bergreen, who has written biographies of James Agee and Irving Berlin, has "abandoned conventional assumptions of...right and wrong" in his sympathetic portrayal of the one-time Public Enemy Number One. He blames the hypocrisies of Prohibition and anti-Italian bias for creating Capone's undeserved reputation, and he is especially critical of Capone nemesis Eliot Ness. Bergreen labels the tax evasion trial that sent Capone to prison a "legalistic lynching" and tends to excuse Capone's more unsavory actions as the results of "latent neurosyphilis." However controversial, this book offers much of interest, including new information about Capone and his family. Larger crime collections will want both books.
Gregor A. Preston, Univ. of California Lib., Davis
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
People still respond to the mention of Chicago by saying, "Al Capone. Rat-a-tat-tat." But public enemy number one did not personally use the Thompson submachine gun to protect his bootlegging empire, says Bergreen, although his associates most certainly did. In fact, Bergreen sets out to dispel the hoodlum-killer aspect of Capone's career, instead focusing on the racketeer's insistence on being a businessman. For the most part, despite the Saint Valentine's Day massacre and numerous other gang killings, he succeeds. Bergreen starts out slowly, tending to blame much of Capone's later actions on a poor childhood, and concentrating on the future gangster's ostracism by fellow immigrant Irish and even Sicilians (Capone's family was Neapolitan). A side plot about a long-lost brother's becoming a Great Plains lawman is intriguing but doesn't really go anywhere, and another lawman, "untouchable" Eliot Ness, self-proclaimed Capone scourge, fares poorly; Ness is annoying to the Capone empire, but not much else. Most revealing of all are the gangster's declining years in Alcatraz, where Capone tried to teach himself to play the banjo! Bergreen's view of Capone the man is not particularly surprising otherwise, but the 1920s view of Prohibition-era Chicago is tremendously entertaining. Joe Collins
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