Janet L. (planetjanet) reviewed on 2/11/2006 + 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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