J. R. Moehringer

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] show more 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 show less

The Oprah Magazine (which I've never read) says "Will steal your heart." It was right. I was thoroughly engrossed by both the story, and by the character of Willie Sutton.

Mr. Moehringer has written Willie as a sympathetic character -- someone who tried to be good but circumstances kept getting in his way. Someone who loved to read and educate himself. Someone devoted for life to his one, true love. A folk hero who robbed the evil banks and never hurt a regular person. Maybe not an accurate show more portrayal (Willie Sutton was a real person), but it worked in the novel.

The late scene with Kate broke my heart. The final chapter where Reporter is looking back over things was anti-climatic in comparison, but it brought closure for Reporter, and showed how Willie's infamy had come to an end.

So well written. It grabbed me from the beginning. Life in the 1920s and 30s in New York was so well described, as were the prison conditions Willie endured. A truly great read! show less

Far too many of the reviews for this book here on LT criticize the book and the author for 'whining' about his childhood. I can only deduce these readers had their humanity removed in some kind of surgical procedure meant to bolster their own perception of themselves. Honestly, the reveiwers/readers all must come from perfectly well-adjusted families and are themselves superior to everyone else in every way. Far from whining, Moehringer regularly castigates himself for his faults, even show more though they are largely not of his own making. He came from an altogether dysfunctional family and struggled for everything, particularly a grounded sense of himself. The characters are so credible and unique that they would never be believed in a fictional account. It's the kind of book that is wildly popular these days, only from a female perspective. Don't get me wrong, there are far too few female authors and female narratives because of the gender gaps in publishing. But, I'd argue, there are also too few honest male voices writing sincerely about male identity and struggles - Moehringer fills this void with class. For those who reviewed this book negatively, I'd say, "Get over yourselves." For everyone else, "Read this book."

The book was recently adapted to film, and the producers, which included Moehringer, did a nice job of capturing the tone of the narrative - boy basically grows up in a bar, raised by ne'er-do-well barflies - but the book is much more evocative, lighter on the Hollywood moments and heavier on the heart-felt emotion.

Highly Recommended!
5 bones!!!!! show less

A memoir of a young man whose mother struggled to raise him alone after leaving his abusive father. In place of the man he never really knew, JR (it doesn't STAND FOR ANYTHING!) latched on to his Uncle Charlie and a motley assortment of bartenders and patrons at "The Bar", the neighborhood watering hole in his hometown of Manhasset on Long Island. Throughout his teenage years, these men took him under their collective and individual wings, took him to the beach, discussed books with him, show more gave him advice (of varying degrees of usefulness), encouraged him to dream of and eventually apply to Yale and made him feel he had a home beyond the bedlam of his grandparents' house, where he and his mother most often lived. Later, they supported him through failed love affairs, demoralizing attempts at novel-writing and dead-end jobs, taught him by example (mostly how to drink and survive hangovers), and gave him unconditional love. The story could be depressing as all get-out, but it's not. There is so much humor and tenderness in it--and after all, here is this supremely well-written memoir you're reading, as proof that it all turned out OK in the end. show less