Billy Bathgate is a young street urchin who attaches himself to Dutch Schultz and his mob & proceeds to narrate Dutch's decline and fall.
I didn't think this one was up to the standard that Doctorow has set
in books like Ragtime (see Review) &
Waterworks. For one thing, mobsters have been done to death. But
more significantly, fiction with the arc of tragedy requires a tragic figure--here,
we never like Dutch enough to care that he gets his comeuppance.
(Reviewed:)
Grade: (C)
