Immagine dell'autore.

Jimmy Breslin (1928–2017)

Autore di La gang che non sapeva sparare

31+ opere 1,665 membri 32 recensioni 1 preferito

Sull'Autore

Jimmy Breslin was born James Earle Breslin on October 17, 1928 in Queens, New York. In the late 1940's, The Long Island Press hired him as a copy boy. After getting a job as a sportswriter for The New York Journal-American, he wrote a book about the first season of the Mets entitled Can't Anybody mostra altro Here Play This Game? This book led to him being hired as a news columnist for The New York Herald Tribune in 1963. He later wrote for The New York Post, The Daily News, New York Newsday, and New York magazine. He wrote both fiction and nonfiction books. His novels included The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight; World Without End, Amen; and Table Money. His nonfiction books included The Good Rat, The Short Sweet Dream of Eduardo Gutierrez, I Want to Thank My Brain for Remembering Me, The Church That Forgot Christ, and biographies of Damon Runyon and Branch Rickey. He died on March 19, 2017 at the age of 88. (Bowker Author Biography) mostra meno
Fonte dell'immagine: Credit: David Shankbone, Brooklyn Book Festival, Sept. 14, 2008

Opere di Jimmy Breslin

The Good Rat: A True Story (2008) 202 copie
Damon Runyon: A Life (1991) 117 copie
Branch Rickey (2011) 108 copie
Table Money (1986) 86 copie
World Without End, Amen (1973) 68 copie
Forsaking All Others (1982) 47 copie

Opere correlate

Baseball: A Literary Anthology (2002) — Collaboratore — 336 copie
The Best American Sports Writing of the Century (1999) — Collaboratore — 191 copie
Pogo's Body politic (A Fireside book) (1972) — Prefazione, alcune edizioni63 copie
One Night on Broadway (2004) — Collaboratore — 4 copie
I Go Pogo [1980 film] (1980) — Actor — 2 copie

Etichette

Informazioni generali

Nome canonico
Breslin, Jimmy
Nome legale
Breslin, James Earle
Data di nascita
1928-10-17
Data di morte
2017-03-19
Sesso
male
Nazionalità
USA
Luogo di nascita
Jamaica, Queens, New York, USA
Luogo di morte
New York, New York, USA
Causa della morte
pneumonia
Luogo di residenza
New York, New York, USA
Attività lavorative
columnist
novelist
Organizzazioni
Newsday
Premi e riconoscimenti
Pulitzer Prize (Commentary, 1986)

Utenti

Recensioni

I need to go wash my hair.

The first time I ever heard the term "sandhog," was when I read about workmen on the Brooklyn bridge. I was impressed with a job that looks horrifying, and it's probably much more so in reality. In this case, sand hogs are creating tunnels that will carry water to the billions of people that live in the New York City area. I say billions because it's an unthinkable amount of people living there.

The best parts of this book were accidents that happened because of the dangerous nature of this job.

It was a love-hate relationship with this book. The wife of the protagonist, Dolores, was an admirable character. She reminded me so much of myself when I was younger and I married someone who took my innocence, my youth, my heart, and gave back nothing. I hated the character of the protagonist, "Ownie," whose real name was owen. He was an alcoholic for whom the bottle meant more than anything: more than his marriage, more than his child. Willing to throw away what was so meaningful, to prove that no woman would tell him what to do. It was terribly triggering for me, as so many books are. I wish so much I could reach through the pages and slap the crap out of the son of a b.

Here's the first of the accidents that were so thrilling:
".. when at work one day, deep in the tunnel under the dam, Morrison's friend, Jerry barry, who was here 3 months from donegal, turned off his acetylene torch at the tip but left the tank open. Lit up like he deserved a good smoke for himself. Lit up in a tight chamber far under a reservoir. Barry blew straight up through the roof and into the water. Later, standing on the gravel shore, somebody spotted Barry out in the reservoir. The head was bobbing along, the face looking up, with sometimes no water covering the face at all, looking up at the sky as the water swept it toward the gate in the dam that led to the tunnel in the city. Somebody handed Morrison a pole with a small net on it and said, 'well, this is about all you'll need to fish Barry out of the water.' It was. When Morrison picked it up in the net, the man rowing the boat looked at the head in the net and said, 'I guess he sure left a sour taste in the drinking water.' "

Here's an accident that happened to Owen Morrison's ancestor, Jimmy Morrison. It was a pretty good accident, too:
" A year later, working in High Bridge, Jimmy Morrison and three others got on a lift that dropped like a flower pot off a windowsill, dropped down a 900 ft shaft with the four men on it trying to scream out but unable to make a sound. Jimmy was on his hands and knees and forcing an Act of Contrition through his Frozen mind when the elevator cable caught and the elevator stopped at once. The four were thrown against the steel sides of the shaft with bones breaking and the first cries coming from them. Then the lift broke Free again and dropped the last 50 ft to the bottom. It splintered and the four men were pulled out and had to remain in the shaft for several hours until a new lift was fashioned and sent down to them. One of the four, Gene Cooney, went berserk and, when healed, had to be put away. The other two left sandhog work. Jimmy Morrison, with fractured vertebrae, was in a ward in Bronx general hospital for 6 months."

Throughout the book, mentions are made of a woman named cindy. Cindy is a sex worker, though to her friends it's more like friends with benefits. What I disliked immensely was the author's attitude toward her, as if she's something dirty and smelly, instead of directing it back to the men that make the bad smells and the dirt.
"in the middle of the night or the start of the morning, or whenever it was, he sat on a wicker hamper in the bathroom of Fat's apartment. He knew it was Fat's apartment and he knew his throat throbbed. She stepped out of the shower and stood directly in front of him with the towel held up under her chin.
… (altro)
 
Segnalato
burritapal | 2 altre recensioni | Oct 23, 2022 |
Breslin did a first-rate job researching this book. Good for him for exposing crooked politicians and builders in New York, who use broke Mexicans in their illegal get-richer schemes. I felt in a rage most of the time I was reading this. I'll miss you, Jimmy Breslin.
 
Segnalato
burritapal | Oct 23, 2022 |
The Good Rat, by Jimmy Breslin. A writer of some excellent fiction, Breslin now gives truth to "stranger than fiction" and does it with the same panache he displays so well in his fiction. Good guys and bad guys alike stand revealed in all their naked true selves. I wonder he is still alive considering the characters he investigated/wrote about, and no punches pulled. The tension is there as the deadly deeds are revealed by the perpetrators. Every revelation puts the witness in danger, but the revelations go on. The story revolves around an imprisoned man who operated inside and outside the law, but he testifies honestly with, seemingly no reprisals. You got'ta wonder. A quick read, very entertaining. A great look at the decline (?) of organized crime.… (altro)
 
Segnalato
thosgpetri | 3 altre recensioni | Oct 10, 2022 |
Desmitificación del mundo de la mafia con consideraciones sobre la difícil estructura social de los Estados Unidos.
 
Segnalato
Natt90 | 5 altre recensioni | Jul 5, 2022 |

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Statistiche

Opere
31
Opere correlate
11
Utenti
1,665
Popolarità
#15,419
Voto
½ 3.7
Recensioni
32
ISBN
113
Lingue
5
Preferito da
1

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