Customer Reviews

American Gangster: And Other Tales of New York

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The title of this book is misleading. Instead of "American Gangster: and other tales of New York", it should be "Tales of New York, and American Gangster". The story on Frank Lucas is rather short and superficial, even though it appears that the author was in a position to write a much more compelling story.

I guess I was mistaken to assume that the body of this book would be about gangsters. I did read 'and other tales of New York' on the cover but 15% Lucas the drug kingpin and 85% 'tales'? The homage to Charlie Rangel and the 911 'truthers' were a bit much for a reader looking for an insight into the world of a real gangster(Rangel???). I feel shammed. I also noticed that the author chided Lucas for not owning up to the misery his drugs caused others, yet admitted to smoking drugs with the dealer during the interview. Sophist? They already have my money-save yours...

"American Gangster" is a collection of Mark Jacobson articles depicting off-beat New York City characters. I bought this book because I wanted to know the "facts" about Frank Lucas, the subject of the "American Gangster" movie.

The Frank Lucas article, like many of the articles in this collection, focuses on describing and illustrating the character rather than giving a great number of facts. Frank Lucas from the article is more self-centered, conniving and crude than the slick Hollywood movie version.

The articles cover a wide variety of characters from the clientele of a cigar shop to 9/11 conspiracy theorists to the owner of a high-dollar escort service. Some of the characters are less than savory and some of them were not very interesting to me.

With the broad range of subjects presented in "American Gangster" there is a good chance there will be something of interest to just about any reader. There is also a good chance the reader will come across a few articles they would rather skip.

This title can easily be misconstrued, for "American Gangster" is much more than a simple crime story, even though the rise and fall of legendary Harlem drug lord Frank Lucas is chronicled in the first chapter. This book is comprised of a series of articles the author had written over the years for New York magazine and the Village Voice describing life in the city of New York and the people who made it tick. In addition to profiles of such celebrated luminaries as U.S. Congressman Charles Rangel and jazz musician Wynton Marsalis, the reader is introduced to Patty Huston, a one-man crime wave dubbed "the last Irish cowboy of Sunnyside (Queens)"; Jason Itzler, the nice Jewish boy who ran a $25,000-a-night prostitution ring from a Soho loft; the homeboys from Harlem who produced "Dead Roses," the 'hood's version of "Night of the Living Dead," this one taking place in the city's housing projects. The sleaziness of East Fourteenth Street and Third Avenue, where drug dealing and prostitution were rampant, is recalled in the years before the area was virtually taken over by NYU and such stalwart landmarks as the Academy of Music and Julian's Pool Hall were gutted and replaced with dormitories. The diversity of the subject matter ranges from the humble, hard-working hispanic couple who emigrated to the U.S. and opened up a successful cigar store in Manhattan's Flower District, to the gang wars which ripped Chinatown apart in the Seventies and Eighties, to the daily goings-on at the now-defunct Dover Garage on Hudson Street (upon which the sitcom "Taxi" was based). This is one of the few collections in which I found every chapter interesting, due in large part to Mr. Jacobson's gifted writing. I would strongly recommend "American Gangster" to anyone who would like to know what the pre-gentrified city was really like (although there is a chapter on 9/11) or even for those who, such as myself, remember it quite vividly.

Chapter 1 of the book features the story of legendary gangster Frank Lucas (now made famous by the movie American Gangster), but it delves deeper into the lives and culture of a few select people that help make New York an eclectic and mesmerizing city.

You will walk away from this book satisfied, but longing to learn more.

This book is a rip off, dude is a journalist not a book writer. He got lucky and rocketed to fame off the fraudulent story of Frank Lucas and now got a book deal out of it too. Unbelievable. To check out real stories on American gangsters read Street Legends vol. 1 and 2 from Gorilla Convict Publications.

I Bought this book with out looking past the cover. My mistake. I was excited to read about the story of Frank Lucas rise and fall. Little did I know that 20 pages were about Frank and the rest of the book a series of stories of store owners and low lifes around New York. Oh, also the largest chapter is dedicated to telling the story of the 9-11 Truth organization. What a waste of paper. I know it was called American Gangster and Other Tales of New York, but I was hoping for more about Frank Lucas. I didn't care about any of the other people in this book. Mr. Jacobson spends chapter after chapter pining away about the colorful pill pushers that Giuliani got rid of, Chinese Gangbangers, Charlie Rangle and an assortment of others I could care less about. Maybe I will write a book similar to Mr. Jacobson's, I will call it The Boston Strangler and 15 other Bostonian's you don't really care to hear about. Maybe it is my New England bias, no, no this book just sucks.

People who read Pete Hamill will love Mark Jacobson. I purchased the book because I saw the film, American Gangster, and discovered that the book is a collection of Jacobson's writings from New York Magazine and the Village Voice. Like Hamill, he makes the city come alive in all of its splendor, tawdriness, cruelty, and magnificence. The stories are all true, and if the reader didn't know that upfront, credibilty could be an issue. Some of the people who populate these pages are unreal in the extreme but extraordinarily riveting in their portrayal.

The best essay in the book is not about crime. It is about the author's house.....the house that his mother sold after his father's death. That is, without exception, one of the most insightful memoirs of family and place that I have read in a long time. That esssay alone made me keep the book rather than pass it on to the Friends of the Library resale rack.

Having read this collection of essays, I now actively search out anything this author has written. He is that good.