Billy Bathgate
1st edition
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| Author | E. L. Doctorow |
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| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Postmodern Historical novel |
| Publisher | Random House |
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Publication date
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1989 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 323 pp |
Billy Bathgate is a 1989 novel by author E. L. Doctorow that won the 1989 National Book Critics Circle award for fiction for 1990, the 1990 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, the 1990 William Dean Howells Medal, and was the runner up for the 1990 Pulitzer Prize and the 1989 National Book Award. The story is told in the first person by Billy "Bathgate" Behan, a fifteen-year-old boy who first becomes the gofer and then surrogate son of mobster Dutch Schultz.
A 1991 film based on the novel starred Loren Dean as Billy, Dustin Hoffman as Schultz, Steven Hill as Otto Berman, Nicole Kidman as Drew, and Bruce Willis as Bo.
Billy Behan is an impoverished Irish American fifteen-year-old living in The Bronx with his schizophrenic mother, who supports the family by working at a laundry. Billy runs with a gang of other boys his age, whose antics primarily consist of seeking out places in the city where they can spy on the successful mobsters whom they idolize. One afternoon, the boys are present when Dutch Schultz—who has gone in hiding to avoid being arrested for tax evasion—arrives to inspect a warehouse being used to store bootlegged beer. Billy demonstrates his skill at juggling for Schultz, who calls him a "capable boy" and gives him money. Billy, taking the event as a sign, tracks down an office in the Bronx where Schultz runs an illegal gambling operation and infiltrates it by pretending to be a delivery boy. Otto Berman, Schultz's accountant and second in command, is impressed with Billy's cunning and hires him on as a janitor, using the position to begin mentoring Billy in the ways of mafia life. Over the course of the summer, Billy grows close to both Schultz, who maintains control over his crumbling empire through violence and intimidation, and Berman, who is attempting to steer organized crime towards more legitimate business ventures.
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Wikipedia