Popular culture often follows itself; genres becoming momentarily popular across books, films, and television. For the last couple years we have seen a bit of gangster resurgence, with television programs like "Boardwalk Empire" and Ken Burn's documentary "Prohibition", and the recent film "Gangster Squad" detailing the lives of what are strangely a kind of American hero - the gangster. The dramatic appeal is undeniable. They are often initially portrayed as complex and charismatic souls, first or second generation immigrants driven to a life of crime by poverty, corruption, and often the opportunity posed by Prohibition and drug dealing. They are cunning and intelligent, but uneducated, almost always the victims of childhood abuse of some sort. They slowly blossom into heroes, typically stealing from those that somehow deserve to be robbed. Finally, their true psychopath personalities are revealed, and in the end they must almost always die. No matter how much you like them, real and fictional gangsters like Clyde Barrow, Mickey Cohen, and Tony Montana must be dead for society to be secure.
In Sutton, J.R. Moehringer conjures up the real-life gangster Willie Sutton, nicknamed "Willie the Actor" and "Slick Willie" for the performances he would often employ to get into a bank or jewelry store; usually dressing up like a cop or deliveryman. Willie's true story slides right into the classic gangster dramatic arc; he grows up poor, uneducated, and abused in an Irish immigrant family in New York. He begins robbing banks and stores in the 1920's out of desperation and as a kind of pay-back for the economic disparities of the period. He uses the wonderful visual tools of the gangster - big Thompson sub machine guns and flashy get-away cars. He hangs around with the colorful and very famous gangsters of the period like Lucky Luciano and Al Capone. He exudes charisma, spending his loot on fancy suits and "booze and broad-filled evenings". He gains hero status among much of America because he takes on the hated banks and aristocrats that became lower-class enemies during the Depression.
But in the end he breaks character. He doesn't reveal himself to be the psychopath we always expect. He manages to complete his life of crime with very little - or perhaps no violence - depending on whom you believe. His life becomes a kind of unfinished love story. He spends most of his years squirrelled away in prison, where he takes up a studious and contemplative existence centering on books and gardening. And he doesn't die the gangster's death: instead living comfortably until 1980, enjoying his retirement in Florida.
And it is that Slick Willie that Moehringer introduces us to. We pick up the story as an old and thoughtful Willie is released from prison in 1969 after spending seventeen years in Attica. Willie is famous and beloved, his release big national news, the clever crook that used his brain instead of violence to "stick it to the man". In need of cash, he sells his story to a newspaper, and the book becomes the telling of that story; Willie relating his life to a young reporter and photographer as they drive around New York, essentially an entire novel of "backstory" that takes place in one day. Moehringer even manages to infuse a bit of mystery into the journey, as the reporter try to find out whether or not Sutton actually broke his credo of non-violence and murdered a man.
It is a wonderful and innovative way to approach historical fiction. The story is told in flashback by a wiser and more developed character; with the added patina of a Rip Van Winkle tale; a man goes into prison in the conservative post-World War II years, and emerges a celebrity at the height of the experimental Hippie generation in a country trying to find itself.
"You've come back to a different world," a friend warns him when he leaves the prison and sees a woman wearing a mini-skirt.
Sutton roams his old streets, sometimes visiting familiar places, but he often discovers his old haunts have been bulldozed and reinvented as something new and often much worse. There is a sense of the ugly New York of the 60's and 70's - a city as lost as Sutton. The format allows Willie and the reader to explore his demons and lost loves, while moving through a lifetime in one day. The contrast between the legendary Willie and the young, long-haired, dope-smoking reporters provides a great contrast between Sutton's generation and 1969.
Moehringer employs a third person approach to the book, utilizing mostly short paragraphs and a lot of colorful period dialogue. We want Willie and all his cohorts to talk like mobsters, and we're not disappointed. But Willie is also the "smart guy" that just never got a chance. In prison he educates himself, and old Willie can quote Ezra Pound, Tennyson, and Jack Kerouac, along with Lucky Luciano, making him a much richer character. He is constantly surprising and irritating his handlers as he walks through most of the book in a kind of fugue - often alcohol induced - flipping between the past and present - and confronting his demons. The dialogue is sparse and to the point; often severely clipped to one or two words, very noir. He is wise and surprisingly patient.
This format - backstory related to a reporter that then resembles a memoir - would seem a natural approach for Moehringer. The author began his career as a journalist writing for The New York Times and several other newspapers, winning a Pulitzer for Feature Writing. His own memoir, The Tender Bar related his life growing up in a bar. After that he was hired to write Andre Agassi's memoir Open before tackling Sutton. So in many ways his latest book becomes a kind of amalgam of his previous literary endeavors; part journalism, part memoir, wrapped in a historical novel.
There is a lot of very familiar territory covered here; immigrant poverty, misunderstood charismatic criminals, lost loves, the romance and violence of the gangster lifestyle, never-ending class struggle; subjects covered ad nauseum in hundreds of attempts that range from awful to magnificent. It's tough to put a new face on such a trod-upon ground, but Moehringer manages to pull it off with a really terrific book.
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From #1 New York Times bestselling author Colleen Hoover comes a novel that explores life after tragedy and the enduring spirit of love. | Learn more
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