Word: schultze
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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BILLY BATHGATE by E.L. Doctorow (Random House; $19.95). A fictional Bronx boy, circa 1935, is accepted into the inner councils of the infamous Dutch Schultz gang and survives murderous adventures to tell an incendiary tale...
Those who have followed E.L. Doctorow's career -- a considerable number, judging from the commercial and critical successes of previous books -- will find much in Billy Bathgate that feels, initially, familiar. As in Ragtime (1975), this novel mingles fictional characters with historical ones: Schultz, Walter Winchell, Thomas E. Dewey. The setting combines Depression seediness and underworld glamour in a manner reminiscent of Loon Lake (1980). And this is not the first time Doctorow has written about a boy's coming of age in the Bronx; he did so in World's Fair (1985), even giving its made-up hero...
...mysterious fascination that outlaws and gangsters have always held for law-abiding American citizens. In this, Billy is a native son of his place and time, a poor section of the Bronx in 1935, which is distinguished in his eyes only by the fact that the famous Dutch Schultz grew up there. In truth, Schultz still runs a beer drop in the vicinity, even though Prohibition has been repealed: "We were honored to know that our neighborhood was good enough for one of his places, we were proud we enjoyed his confidence." When he manages to attract the great...
...thus becomes a receptive but essentially passive observer of a garish, deadly world, living, as he puts it, "in the very pulsebeat of the tabloids." He freely enters Mob-owned nightclubs and elegant, exclusive brothels. When no one, including reporters or federal agents, can find Schultz, Billy is allowed into his presence: "It is spectacular enough to see someone in the flesh whom you've only known in the newspapers, but to see someone the newspapers have said is on the lam definitely has a touch of magic to it." The young apprentice also learns that "I had caught...
...Doctorow's Billy Bathgate is the tale of a Bronx boy who comes under the vivid tutelage of a gangster named Dutch Schultz. Combustible reading...