Sutton

A very enthralling & sympathetic tale. I can easily sympathize with Willie, trying so hard to live a good life but being stymied time after time by economic events out of his control.By the time we get to the last chapter, I start to think that Moehringer is speaking about himself, an perception that I didn't get earlier in the story, where the Reporter is not necessarily mentioned sympathetically.

Book on CD narrated by Dylan Baker Everyone knows the Willie Sutton quote; asked why he robbed banks, Sutton purportedly said, “That’s where the money was.” Of course, this was later questioned, but it has remained part of the Sutton lore. In this historical fiction novel, Moehringer tries to explain why Willie robbed all those banks. In a brief author’s note Moehringer relates that after spending half his life in prison, Sutton was released from Attica on Christmas Eve 1969. He spent the entire day with a reporter and a photographer, retracing the steps of his personal history through the boroughs of New York City. The resulting article, however, was curiously sparse in detail. Moehringer writes: “Sadly, Sutton and the reporter and the photographer are all gone, so what happened among them that Christmas, and what happened to Sutton during the preceding sixty-eight years, is anyone’s guess. This book is my guess. But it’s also my wish.”I wanted to like this. I remember the hoopla when Sutton was released in 1969, and I’ve always been fascinated by true crime works. I knew this was a novel, however, I expected something along the lines of other novels I’ve read that are “fictionalized biographies.” The trouble I had here was Moehringer’s chosen device. Following Sutton, the reporter and the photographer throughout Christmas day 1969, and then having Sutton recall one event after another from his past. It just didn’t work for me. I would be involved in the past and then yanked to the back seat of the car while Willie’s scarfing down donuts provided by the photographer. I also didn’t like the author’s choice to call his characters not by name, but by their roles in Sutton’s life: Photographer, Reporter, Left Cop, Right Cop, etc. It annoyed me. On the plus side, I really liked the sections where we were living in Sutton’s past. Moehringer brought the 1920s and 1930s to life in his descriptions and scenes on the streets of Brooklyn, or in the prison cells in which Sutton was held. Dylan Baker does a credible job of narrating the audiobook. It’s difficult to follow at times because of the constant moving back and forth in time. The text version using different fonts to give the reader a clue, but the person listening to the audio version doesn’t get any such clue. That’s not the narrator’s fault, it’s the author’s.

A fictional rendering of the life of notorious bank-robber and jail-breaker Willie Sutton, who supposedly answered a reporter's question about why he robbed banks with the classic line "Because that's where the money is". Sutton, later in life, said that he probably would have said that if anyone asked him that question, because it's pretty obvious, but that the story wasn't true..."The credit belongs to some enterprising reporter who apparently felt a need to fill out his copy..." [Sutton] is based on an enterprising reporter's attempt to get Willie's story on Christmas Day, 1969, after Willie had been released from prison for the last time, in ill health. Willie takes Reporter and Photographer (these characters and many others in the book, are referred to only by their occupations) on a tour of his old haunts around Manhattan and Brooklyn, ostensibly leading up to the big pay-off, i.e. his revealing what really happened to the clean-cut kid who spotted him and alerted the cops several years after Willie's last successful prison break. Reporter and Photographer don't get much but tired, but Reader.....Reader gets the works. This is one of the most engrossing stories I've read in a long time. The crimes he committed are not the focus of the tale; Moehringer (an enterprising reporter himself) has fleshed out the man, and given us a Willie Sutton we can understand...not just a cardboard cut-out 20th century Robin Hood, but a real human struggling to survive, to do what he's good at, and maybe find a little love.Review written July 2014

I finished this book several days ago and I find my thoughts returning to it. I try to imagine myself growing up in Sutton's neighborhood in the early years of 1900 and facing the poverty, despair and futility of everyday existence. Up one day, flat out the next with no prospects. We have all heard the stories of the signs "Irish need not apply."

Several other readers mentioned the sub-treatise on the banking industry and there is no doubt that he parallels the industry then and now. I am not sure it was necessary. The banks existed and Willie Sutton chose to rob them because that is where the money was.

The truly interesting aspect of this book for me was the insight into the personality of Willie Sutton and I enjoyed all the literary devices Moehringer used to bring Sutton to life. Sutton is depicted as a man who knew love and whether it was love found, lost or imagined it was all believable. The brutality he endured - all believable. The book was worth every minute devoted to it.

Well read by the narrator! It certainly added dimensions to the book.

I enjoyed it -- it's always good to like the protagonist, and I did find myself rooting for the "bad guy" even though you know how it ends (because of how it begins). All Willy's ups and downs, his tenacity, it's admirable even while it's incredible.

Comments on the conclusion:
The scene at the end with Bess's granddaughter -- that was good. It reframes your perspective and makes you question everything you "believed" from the story. That makes for a good conclusion. Was the epilogue-esque part with Reporter, 11 years later, necessary? I didn't think it was, except that you learn a bit about Willy after the interview. Nothing new, however, that really added to the story (aside from the conflicting memoirs and missing novel). The way Reporter reflects on the encounters with Willy since the interview paints a totally different picture of their relationship than I took from the main narrative. It felt untrue to the story, though perhaps it is part of the non-fiction component?

Either way, the profound observations and statements Sutton makes on life are worthwhile, even if you question his sanity. That just adds another layer to the puzzle of life.

An imaginative story, almost entirely fictitious, of the bank robber Willie Sutton and why he robbed banks. hint: It wasn't exactly because that's where the money was. The story is quite sympathetic to Sutton, and sanitized I'm sure, and a good tale. However I dislike the artsy McCarthyesque desire not to use punctuation with dialog. It spoils my reading experience. When I am constantly distracted with: is he saying this? is he thinking this? who is saying this? is this a description of something or is he talking about it? well, just doesn't work for me no matter how good an author may think he is doing it. After a while I caught the rhythm of the style and it was easier to read but it still would lose me now and then and throw me out of the story while I re-read lines trying to figure things out.Still, the story itself is very interesting and I enjoyed it. It is a compelling read and after a while one gets used to the lack of punctuation. One has to throw oneself back in time to Christmas Eve 1969 and Willie Sutton being given a pardon and release from Attica Correctional Facility in New York. There are, I think, a few anachronisms and glitches that poked me a little while reading. Willie rides around town on Christmas day with a photographer and reporter and as they visit places we get Willie's backstory. Willie has been a big book reader in prison and he knows a lot. He also has his own rich history. He seems unaware of changes in society in the 17 years he has been in prison, which could be expected, but curiously well aware of others. And, when Willie uses an expression like "same old same old" which I am pretty positive I had never heard by 1969, I scratched my head a little. At least Willie doesn't say "back in the day." OK, I'm nitpicking a little. But Willie steals a Chrysler, zooms away in the Chevy, then gets out of the Chrysler. Some magic there. It's a really good story. It takes a while to get going, but once it does it is quite good. I was a little disappointed with the end game after the enjoyable trip to get there. Actually, I was a lot disappointed with the ending. We know that Willie doesn't tell a story the same way once, but the end makes one think that the entire story we have read is a complete delusion. And the end after the end just made no sense to me. So I still give the story 4 stars. It could have had the moon though with just a bit of spit and shine.

A highly romanticized a sympathetic telling of the story of Willie Sutton perhaps the most notorious bank robber in United States history. Willie is contacted by a reporter and photographer from a publication that has exclusive rights to interview late in his life after a seventeen year stint in prison (from which he was just released). He takes them in chronological order to a series of locations in New York City that were important in his life and he tells them part of his story at each spot. It is quite creatively done but this book is the rose colored glasses version of his life as the author has given him plenty of excuses for his bad behavior over the years. More perhaps about the authors wishes than reality.

Really fun historical fiction book. I think a good way to judge this genre is by level of disappointment felt that the story is not completely real. Really is a great story of a criminal life that was driven to love (not driven BY love, as some of the jacket comments would lead you to believe). If the book has a fault, in my opinion, it is that not enough time is spent relating the events of Willy's sult life outside of prison (what little there was). I had the chance to read this book in large chunks (irregular for me), and I do wonder if I would have liked it as much without this opportunity. Another possible insult, mostly because it makes it hard to recommend to certain readers is the non-use of quotation marks for dialogue--sort of a niche style that I'm not all together on board with, but perhaps works in this case, as it is historical fiction.

Although I liked this book overall, I found the flashback style distracting and the ending a bit odd. This story of one of the 20th century's most famous bank robbers presents a complex character and raises questions regarding economic injustice.

Willie Sutton is an interesting character. In some ways, the once-famous bank robber is a victim of the times in which he became a man, when banks were failing every few years and jobs were scarce, then plentiful, then scarce again. But unlike most men of the time, Willie turned to crime. That he was never violent toward any of his victims, and never ratted on any of his accomplices, makes him slightly more respectable but Moehringer doesn't sugarcoat the fact that he was indeed a thief. Willie not only excelled at the art of robbery but at the art of escape. Unfortunately, staying free was not his strong suit and he was captured again and again, which makes his story somewhat repetitive and frustrating. Insight into Irish neighborhoods, the prison system at the time, journalism,and the theory that Willie may have done it all for misplaced love of a girl make it a satisfying, if somewhat overlong, read.

I thought the author did a terrific job pulling all the different strings of Willie Sutton's life: it stays sensational through the descriptions of his adventures, daring escapes, and infallible love, but through the eyes of an old man, his life is tainted by nostalgia making it human and emotional. I was on edge until the very end as we are brought through the twists and turns of Sutton's memories clashing with reality and hearsay, further perfecting the myth of an unknowable man. I was enchanted and intrigued, transported in a new world and completely wrapped up in the story. Marvelous.

What an unusual book- It is historical fiction that blends the past and present so smoothly. J.R. Moehringer brings to life an actual famous bank robber and then mixes fact with fiction to recreate his life. The story begins as Willie Sutton has just been released from prison in a world that is dramatically different from the one he left. He, a newspaper writer and photographer then travel around New York City to revisit all of Willie's haunts but the kicker is that these places (and a woman) are haunting him still. Sutton was a gentleman robber, taking from the banks in a time when the average man or woman had nothing and the banks owned the world. A bit Robin Hood or Butch Cassidy, his life was cheered by the average New Yorker and most are rooting for him after prison. The story is told between Sutton's memories of his life and the love of his life, Bess and the present day conversations he has with "kid", the journalist. It will make even the most hardened suburbanite fall in love with New York City.

Loved the writing - Moehringer is always such a great read. That said, the story was frustrating, since it's not obvious what's fact and what's imagined in this historical fiction account. The read merely whetted my appetite for what I'm afraid is unavailable information about Sutton. The tale is revealed in flashbacks during a tour of his New York haunts on the day after his release from Attica (at about age 68), accompanied by a reporter and photographer. I found this narrative style effective, but, again, it left me wanting more details, more background, more information about Sutton, the people he interacted with, and the times. Recommended

The author tells a fictional account of the famous bank robber Willie "the Actor" Sutton. It's amazing how many banks Willie actually robbed and how much money he got away with, especially considering the time. The author tells the story from the point of view of Sutton when he just gets out of prison at an old age. The first 30 or so pages are a little slow, but after that I couldn't put it down. The ending is a little confusing, but if I discuss it here it would be too much of a spoiler. I definitely recommend it! Good book!

I have a very vivid recollection of an early days TV show on gangsters that featured Willie Sutton in one of its episodes. At the time Sutton would have been serving his last prison sentence, and he was no longer the headline grabbing bank robber of the 30's and 40's. In the TV show, he was portrayed as a clever, harmless, amusing character who pulled the wool over everyone's eyes. But the novel "Sutton" portrays a far more complex, intelligent and somewhat sad character, someone who was a victim of his humble origins and of his times. While there is significant information about his criminal, penal, and courtroom history, little is known of the man - Willie was not a rat, so he revealed nothing about his accomplices and he was always careful not to incriminate himself. So the author, J.R. Moehringer, has constructed a life about Willie based on those times and linking Sutton's criminal files with it. The story opens with Willie's Christmas Eve pardon in the late 60's. He has given an exclusive about his life to a New York newspaper, and as part of the interview process, Willie insistes on being chauffered to various sites in the city where major events in his life occurred. As they visit each site, Willie gives brief, low-detail accounts germain to each place. But prior to each stop, the author has Willie share his most detailed recollections of critical events. I found these piece by piece stories to be rather effective in revealing Willie's life. Though there were of course some humous, some exciting, and even some romantic chapters in this tale, I found it rather sad overall, a bit too gloomy. I felt that parts of his supposed character were a real stretch to make him a bit more sympathetic. I also felt that the conclusion was overlong, somewhat boring. Would I recommend it? - yes, but not enthusiastically.

The Good Stuff Was completely enthralled with the story and with Wilie Little hints throughout story grab you throughout the story and keeps you from wanting to put book down. Had a couple of late nights with this one - not to mention a couple of times I really didn't want to go back on the sales floor I was so engrossed Makes you think about so many things - especially about nature vs nurture How can you not love a bank robber who went out of his way not to kill people Need to know more about Sutton -- think I will be looking into some of the research Author obviously thoroughly researched Sutton Authentic & you feel like you are back in the era The characters love of the written word is delightful and gives you another reason to be intrigued by him The part with the psychiatrist really gives you pause for thought Get a real understanding of America during the depression Delightfully dark and funny at time I dare you not to fall in love with Willie and cheer him on - a moral quandary for sure, you know what he has done is wrong, yet you can understand what brought him to this place and think maybe just maybe if you were in the same place, you to0 might make the same choices An intriguing and unusual love story O.K. - enough - it's also a Heather's Pick. I'm usually not the type of girl that goes for the Oprah picks or Globe and Mail lists and definitely not anything literary - but man I think Heather and I have similar tastes Just go buy it - you will thank me The Not So Good Stuff A wee bit slow moving at times Still confused about one part (And damn you Moehringer - it just broke my heart if I get what happened)Favorite Quotes/Passages "Because Sutton robbed banks, the TV reporter says, and who the hell has a kind word to say for banks? They should not only let him out, they should give him the key to the city." "He invited death in with that suicide note. Once you let death in, it doesn't always leave." "Oh kid, it's all about confidence. That's the whole game right there. Whatever you do, do it with your nuts. That's how Ruth swung a bat - with his nuts. Rob a bank, date a girl, brush your teeth - whatever. Do it with boldness, with swagger, with nuts, or don't do it all." "A man is his job, kid, and I had no job, so I was a bum. A loser. America's a great place to be a winner, but it's hell on losers." Who Should/Shouldn't Read Not to be sexist or anything but this one will really appeal to men but at the same time most women will be as enthralled with the story as I was Perfect Christmas gift for pretty much everyone on your list -- there is something for pretty much everyone in this one Not for those who need things clear cut and fast paced One that you could give to both Non-Fiction and Fiction lovers 4.5 Dewey'sBorrowed this one from our staff room library - basically a bunch of ARC's from publishers and we can borrow and pass around - another truly awesome part of my job

On Christmas, 1969, America’s most beloved bank robber, Willie Sutton, is released by Nelson Rockefeller. He taken in tow by two journalists, Reporter and Photographer, who want an exclusive. He wants them to drive him around Brooklyn and Manhattan to the most important places in his life. Each stop triggers memories in Sutton, and he regales his handlers with stories of his bloodless robberies, his daring escapes, and, above all, his one true love, Bess. Reporter, however, is under orders from his editor to get Sutton’s reaction to the horror that capped his career: the murder of Arnold Schuster, the naïve youth whose recognition of Sutton led to his final arrest. At this point, Sutton breaks down in a way that leads the reader to suspect that he has been deceiving the journalists and himself. Dylan Baker, the reader, is an actor I’ve seen often on television, most recently in the fourth season of “The Americans.” He gives a performance as much as a reading here. He establishes a slightly New Yorkish accent for the basic narration, then gives Sutton a tired rasp of an old man; Reporter, a youthful, anxious, begging tone; Photographer, an obnoxious, very New Yawt know-it-all whine. He gives also gives the best vocalizations of women that I’ve heard. He does overdo it at time, but he succeeds in the important task of making the rich heart of the story come to life.

This is simply the perfect time in our nation's history to read this book. With the recent financial collapse and the big banks only getting bigger and less responsible - a story about one of the most prolific bank robbers who IS punished for stealing while the banks get off scot-free - is just simply compelling."People today don’t remember – the government doesn’t want us to remember. The Bank of the United States just vaporized – with $100 million of people’s life savings. It’s still the biggest bank failure in the history of the world. Thousands of people were wiped out. And did any of those bank managers responsible go to the big house like Willie did? No they did not. They sat around their country clubs laughing it up."Willie Sutton. Willie the Actor. An infamous quote is attributed to him: "Why do you rob banks?" "Because that's where the money is." It's a great quote - but he denied ever saying it. (Although he did use it for the title of one of the two books he wrote later. In "Where the Money Was" - he says, "Why did I rob banks? Because I enjoyed it. I loved it. I was more alive when I was inside a bank, robbing it, than at any other time in my life. I enjoyed everything about it so much that one or two weeks later I'd be out looking for the next job. But to me the money was the chips, that's all.")This novel about Sutton was just fascinating. It was well written, well laid out...and was based on just an incredibly interesting character. "He was Henry Ford by way of John Dillinger – with dashes of Houdini and Picasso and Rasputin. The reporters know all about Sutton’s stylish clothes, his impish smile, his love of good books, the glint of devilment in his bright blue eyes, so blue that the FBI once described them in bulletins as azure. It’s the rare bank robber who moves the FBI to such lyricism." Whether the story is taking place in the present (the Christmas Day Willie was released from jail) or in his past - the action, events, characters and descriptions are just so well done. They are vibrant without being overblown. The reader is made aware that the events are based on Willie's memories - and that they may be colored in the process. And the flavor of the times the story moves through - from the 1900's to the 1980's...is just so well delivered. "Baseball is everything at Eastern State. It’s the best way of killing time, of forgetting time, and one of the few sources of triumph and manly pride. The six prison teams, therefore, play to win. Murderers pitch inside. Mob bosses crowd the plate. Arsonists steal home every chance they get. Things can get out of hand quickly. And yet every game also features a moment or two of pure calm. With each home run comes a tranquil pause, not just for the batter to round the bases, but for everyone else to stare in envy and wistfulness at the spot where the ball went over the wall." When I finished this book (far too soon, it felt) - I was left feeling about the story the way one of the chroniclers of Willie's tale felt."Reporter admits to himself, driving from the steak house back to the hotel, that it’s a ridiculous hope. But no more ridiculous than being fond of a hardened, unrepentant felon. Then he corrects himself. He wasn’t fond in the usual sense of the word. He wouldn’t want to live in a world full of Willie Suttons. He’s simply not sure that he’d want to live in a world with no Willie Suttons."

Born on June 30, 1901 Willie “the Actor” Sutton was a notorious bank robber through the early part of the 1900’s. He died on November 02, 1980 after having spent more than half of his adult life in prison. He served time in several different penal institutions and managed dramatic escapes three times. Willie Sutton was a legend stealing more than $2 million during his dubious career. He became legendary mostly due to the fact that he never completed a robbery if a woman screamed or a baby cried and never hurt or killed anyone during his robberies. Willie was a gentleman thief, but also a smooth talker and a consummate liar so many versions of his escapades exist.

Mr. Moehringer begins his book on the day of Willie’s final release from Attica on Christmas Eve, 1969. Wanting an exclusive story “Reporter” and “Photographer” (Willie never can remember their names) are sent to get the exclusive story of the murder of Arnold Shuster, who recognized Willie on the subway, thereby sending him back to prison for the final time. Willie agrees to the interview but on his terms. He wants to visit the important places in his life in chronological order, finally getting to the scene of the Shuster shooting. Although it means traveling back and forth across the city of New York several times “Reporter” and “Photographer” agree. Each stop is a story told in Willie’s voice, an important event in his life, a memory sometimes sad and sometimes humorous.

Mr. Moehringer obviously did his research. I thoroughly enjoyed this book I wanted to know a little more about Willie Sutton, so did a little more reading about his life. I believe Mr. Moehringer waded through the various stories and factual accounts and wove them into his narrative. The book starts and ends on Christmas Eve of 1969, but the one night is filled with Willie’s memories of decades. Unfortunately the ending is bittersweet for both Willie and the reader.

This was my first read of 2013 and what a great way to start off the new year of reading. This is a five star book all the way. Mr. Moehringer does not go on to tell us about Willie’s life after his release, but my personal reading let me to believe that although he no longer robbed banks (???) and despite suffering from emphysema he still led a pretty interesting life. He became an advocate for prison reform, consulted with banks implementing anti-robbery techniques and even became a spokesperson for the New Britain Bank and Trust Company.

Moehringer has pieced together a fascinating portrait of the motivations and beginnings of one of the Unites States’ most successful and infamous bank robbers, and the undying love that determined the course of his life. Understanding just why Sutton was so attached to Bess Endner after she inspired a life of crime requires the completion of the novel to fully understand. Sutton also quickly and frequently cuts from past to the present for chats with Reporter and Photographer, and there are a veritable stream of characters constantly referred to only by their role or profession. Moehringer liberally uses this time construct throughout the novel, and it could have been used more sparingly. However, the other satisfying elements of the novel and the resolutions to some of the questions it raises made it worth minor narrative annoyances. The complex psychological portrait of Sutton along with other colorful characterizations, and an ear for dialogue makes this a worthy read for anyone interested in bank robbers, Old New York, and good old-fashioned star-crossed lovers.

While J.R. Moehringer was watching the news in 2008, with the world’s banking systems going down the tubes, people losing their life savings, and no-one holding the banks accountable, he became very angry. He thought of the bank robber Willie Sutton, whom he had heard stories about as a child growing up in Brooklyn. Sutton had become mythological for his prolific bank heists and his three escapes from prisons. Moehringer then wrote this touching novelization of what could have happened the day Sutton was released from prison on Christmas in 1969 had he revisited the places from his past.

Moehringer researched Willie Sutton and visited the places that he had traversed during his crime sprees. Along with the stories he heard in boyhood, he had plenty of files to work with in visualizing this story.

It’s interesting to me that so many characters (other than an old woman he meets at The Farm Colony) all have descriptive names such as Bad Cop, Good Cop, Reporter, Photographer, Head Nurse. I was wondering why Moehringer would do this. It sort of muddies their faces for me, like maybe the message is that Sutton doesn’t want to know them any deeper. He certainly didn’t want to reveal any of himself to them. Then again, maybe it’s an extension of the world Sutton was in where so many of his cronies had a nickname. There’s Crazy Joe, Angel of Death, Happy, Mad Dog, Botchy. The list goes on.

This book really opened my eyes to some of the white-washing the United States has done with its own history. Never in my school days was I told that every 10-15 years or so the country will have a recession and hey, you should probably prepare for it. Nope, I was told about the Great Depression and everything else was swept under the rug. I was told that as long as you work hard you will be fine. That’s a lie. You can work hard for years and still lose everything. And the banks will come out the winners.

Early in the book, in the summer of 1914, Willie’s friend Eddie rants about this:

Some f***in system, he says. Every ten or fifteen years it crashes. Aint no system, that’s the problem. It’s every man for his-f***in-self. The Crash of ’93? My old man saw people standin in the middle of the street bawlin like babies. Wiped out. Ruined. But did those bankers get pinched? Nah- they got richer. Oh the government promised it would never happen again. Well it happened again didn’t it fellas? In ’07. And ’11. And when them banks fell apart, when the market did a swan dive, didn’t them bankers walk away scot-free again?

Another theme running through the novel is the subject of memory. How much of our memory is really the way things happened and how much is what we want to believe? Sutton’s version of events is highly entertaining but is it entirely accurate? Read through to the end to find out.

I only have one minor quibble in an otherwise engaging story. I thought the ending was a little strange because I didn’t understand why Reporter went to the theme park. Maybe I just missed something.

The world doesn’t know the genuine Willie Sutton. He wrote two autobiographies which contradict each other. At different times he was lauded and then reviled by his neighborhood, the cops, and the country. Was he really a ‘gentleman bandit’? Did he give money away (I think he did – or is it that I hope he did)?

Moehringer’s book, The Tender Bar, an autobiography, has been on my to-read list for years. I really should break it out soon. It would be great if Sutton had bigger publicity. I can only say that it is definitely worth a read, especially if you are interested in criminal history.

If you believe the author, in this moving and very human portrait of Willie Sutton, he was a good boy gone bad because of circumstances beyond his control; he fell madly in love with a beautiful teenage girl of a different social class and was stoutly rejected by her family. She, Bess, encouraged him to rob her dad’s company so that they could run away and get married. He was under her spell, and although they were merely teenagers, they designed a plan to do just that. It was a bad decision. They were all arrested and thus began his record and life of crime.He is separated from the love of his life, but she is not forgotten, and for the rest of his life, he pines for Bess Endner, who has captured his heart completely. Though he tries to go straight, he is a victim, trapped by the failures of the times he lives in, the cycle of economic recessions and/or depressions and accompanying despair that came with them, all blamed on the banks and bankers, which occurred again and again to derail all his efforts to go straight. Sometimes, an odd convergence of events and people recurred at dramatic moments of his life, and they had the power to make things either better or worse for him, and often, he simply made poor choices. Eventually, he lost hope, totally gave up and truly began a dishonest life, no longer having any respect for morality or the law. A true criminal was born, one that would become a folk hero to the people, even though he willfully broke the law.Born in 1901, he eventually spends more than half his life in prison, and when finally granted early parole and released, in 1969, he is an old man, sick, presumed to be dying, no longer a danger to society. His lawyer makes a deal with a newspaper for one exclusive interview and as the reporter and photographer take Willie on a tour of his life through the places that have influenced him, it was a nostalgic trip for me too. Born in Brooklyn, I knew well the places he visited there, and in Manhattan. I recognized the names of the bankers and the gangsters. It was like the shiny sheet of Palm Beach, but for criminals rather than socialites!Willie, duped by criminals he thought he could trust, suffering from unrequited love, beaten by cops supposedly upholding the law, their crimes hidden from the public, given unduly harsh sentences that might not be handed down today, learned how to get his revenge against the system, that was perhaps, far more corrupt than he was. He kept his mouth closed and never told them anything. To Willie, a “rat” was the worst thing in the world and he was not a rat. Where he committed his crimes and where he hid his money were only for him to know and for “them” never to find out.Willie was educated in prison. As a youngster, neglected at home, physically abused by his older brothers, unable to reach his detached parents, he was constantly struggling. He had to leave school after the 8th grade because they needed money. From the author, we get the picture of a young boy coming of age at time when circumstances betrayed him. Even though he had the best of intentions to live a decent life, society and its ills conspired against him. No one ever gave him the benefit of the doubt, and every chance he got died an early death because of a downturn in the economy. He was a poor Irish kid, already behind the eight ball, feeling there was no hope for his future. No matter how many times he picked himself up, fate knocked him down again.He started out as a dreamer, moral, an alter boy, in Catholic school, and yet, there was no real guidance for him, no mentor that stood by him, through thick and thin, except those he met as a criminal or in prison. Willie’s grandfather, Daddo, was the only one very close to him, one of the few people who genuinely cared for him. He tells him stories of “the little people” of Ireland that steal for fun. They aren’t condemned, but are merely considered mischievous. Perhaps these stories also planted the seeds of crime within him and forged his life into the myth of Willie Sutton as the Robin Hood of bank robbers.Willie disavowed violence, was affable, not quick to lose his temper, stole from banks simply because “that was where the money was”, and always tried not to hurt anyone, according to popular folk lore. Willie never cracked, never told anyone anything, never succumbed to the beatings by the police who deserved to be behind bars themselves for how they treated him, if that part of the story is, indeed, true.The book is divided into three sections: Willie’s life before the long sentence in Sing Sing, Willies life in Sing Sing up to the breakout, Willies life after he is recaptured. The alternate print, divides the narrative in half. In italics, we travel with him, the reporter and the photographer, on an incredible journey, as Willie visits the scenes of his past. We get a glimpse of those imagined scenes, snippets of conversations with his old love, his contacts, friends and enemies, brief thoughts from all those meaningful moments of his life, good and bad. As his memories rise to the surface, the print switches to normal font and to a more detailed description of those highlighted moments. A major drawback is that it is hard to separate what is fact from fiction, real from improbable, because there is no one single truth about who was the real Willie Sutton: Willie the Actor, Slick Willie, the Robin Hood of bank robbers, the Babe Ruth of bank robbers. His story is the stuff of myths. He took his secrets with him to the grave; but the easy writing style of this author, sprinkled with occasional wit, flows so smoothly, it is a pleasure to read, and the fictionalized version of Sutton’s life is mesmerizing. Willie Sutton becomes real to the reader.