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Billy Bathgate
Billy Bathgate
Author: E. L. Doctorow
In 1930's New York, Billy Bathgate, a fifteen-year-old high-school dropout, has captured the attention of infamous gangster Dutch Schultz, who lures the boy into his world of racketeering. The product of an East Bronx upbringing by his half-crazy Irish Catholic mother, after his Jewish father left them long ago, Billy is captivated by the world ...  more »
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ISBN-13: 9780394525297
ISBN-10: 0394525299
Rating:
  • Currently 3.2/5 Stars.
 19

3.2 stars, based on 19 ratings
Publisher: Random House
Book Type: Hardcover
Other Versions: Paperback, Audio Cassette
Reviews: Member | Amazon | Write a Review

Top Member Book Reviews

reviewed Billy Bathgate on + 141 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 3
I couldn't put this book down. I read it the first time when it was originally published and it was just as good, or better the second time. D. L. Doctorow is a marvelous author and actually paints visual images with his long, run-on sentences. A good read about a teenage boy who becomes a part-time operative in Dutch Schultz's gang in the l930's. Loved it!!
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reviewed Billy Bathgate on + 9 more book reviews
Interesting story that is similar to the movie Goodfellas in the first part. Well written.
reviewed Billy Bathgate on + 23 more book reviews
What an entertaining look at humanity, charimsa, fear, power and NYC's mysterious history.
michael avatar reviewed Billy Bathgate on + 42 more book reviews
Great! Great! Great! This book is the reason I read. Doctorow puts you in the scene. Once started the only way out is through the last page!!!
reviewed Billy Bathgate on + 28 more book reviews
"E. L. Doctorow's novel, winner of the 1990 Pen/Faulkner and National Book Critics Circle Awards, extends his trademark extension of history into fiction that began with The Book of Daniel and Ragtime, as well as the evocation of collective dreams that haunted Loon Lake and World's Fair. Billy Bathgate is the brazen boy who insinuates himself into the inner circle of the Dutch Schultz gang to become good-luck charm, apprentice, and finally protege to one of the most notorious murdering gangsters of his time. Like an urban Tom Sawyer in a world of horrors, Billy has come down from the tenement streets of the East Bronx to live in the glamorously evil Depression underworld that Schultz hasd created." (Daedalus review)


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