The Birthday Party: A Memoir of Survival [Hardcover]

Stanley N. Alpert (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 18, 2007

On January 21, 1998, the night before his thirty-eighth birthday, federal prosecutor Stanley Alpert was kidnapped off the streets of Manhattan. This is the story of what happened next. . . .

Alpert was taken by a carful of gun-toting thugs looking to use his ATM card, but when they learned his bank balance the plan changed. They took him, blindfolded with his own scarf, to a Brooklyn apartment, with the idea of going to a bank the next day and withdrawing most of his money. But the later it got, the more the plan changed again . . . and again . . . as his captors alternately held guns to his head, threatened his family, engaged him in discussions of "gangsta" philosophy, sought his legal advice, and, once they learned it was his birthday, offered him sexual favors from their prostitute girlfriends as a "birthday present." All the while, Alpert, still blindfolded, talked with them, played on their attitudes and fears, tried to figure out where their mood swings would take them next, and memorized every detail he could in the event that he ever managed to get out of there alive.

In the meantime, his friends and law enforcement colleagues, worried that they hadn't heard from him, launched a major police and FBI investigation. It, too, would take many twists and turns before it was done-and some of them would be very strange indeed.

Filled with immediacy, drama, and extraordinary characters, told not only from Alpert's memory and notes but from police reports, interviews with NYPD detectives, FBI agents, and witnesses, videotaped confessions, and court records, The Birthday Party reads like a thriller-but every word is true.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this tartly written memoir recalling his 1998 kidnapping, Alpert, a former assistant U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, describes his abduction and release, and the subsequent trial of the kidnappers, with an impressive amount of detail and only the occasional note of self-congratulation for how he handled the ordeal. On the night before his 38th birthday, Alpert was forced at gunpoint into a car near his Greenwich Village apartment, blindfolded, made to relinquish his ATM and PIN, and driven to Brooklyn, where he was kept in an apartment full of oddly personable, gun-wielding youths and teenage prostitutes. In between violent threats, the criminals solicited legal advice concerning past crimes and offered him pot and sexual favors in honor of his birthday. After 25 hours, they handed their hostage $20 cab money and left him in Prospect Park. Though the second part of the account, detailing the mechanics of the arrests and sentencing of the perpetrators, along with Alpert's return to normalcy, is relatively dry and slow, Alpert delivers an honest, vivid chronicle of the suspenseful event itself in the memoir's first half. (Jan.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

The view from inside the trunk of a car is delivered in this harrowing, first-person account of kidnapping, robbery, and revenge. Alpert, who now heads his own law firm, worked for 13 years as an assistant U. S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York. On January 21, 1988, the eve of Alpert's thirty-eighth birthday, he was snatched from a Greenwich Village sidewalk by a carful of thugs, blindfolded and held at gunpoint, and taken to a Brooklyn apartment where his captors tried to figure out how to profit from their big catch. This story is told in two parts, effectively giving a satisfying narrative arc to Alpert's complex ordeal: the first part is "Mouse," recounting Alpert's victimization; the second part is "Cat," in which Alpert pursues his former captors. A street-smart prosecutor, Alpert delivers an unflinching look at the humiliating, terrifying role of the victim, lacing his plight with commentary on contemporary crime and the creaking judicial system. The second part reads as compellingly as the first and with every bit as much suspense. An effective, one-two punch of a memoir. Connie Fletcher
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 306 pages
• Publisher: G. P. Putnam's Sons; 1st edition (January 18, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0399154027
• ISBN-13: 978-0399154027
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (87 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #341,521 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I was born in Brooklyn, New York. Served as a federal environmental prosecutor in New York for 13 years. In 1998, unrelated to my work, I was kidnapped off the street by a gang of robbers who held me, blindfolded in an apartment in Brooklyn, for 25 hours. I survived. The story was "too wild to be fiction" as Joseph Wambaugh says, so feeling the need to tell it, I took several writing classes and transformed myself into an author. I also work as a courtroom and transactions lawyer, on commercial and environmental cases across the United States. Recently I have been working on sustainability, helping green businesses profit from the new environmental ethos that is taking hold in corporate America.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

41 of 54 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars How to Save Your Own Life, January 20, 2007

By 

J Brown Room (A small town called Brooklyn) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Birthday Party: A Memoir of Survival (Hardcover)

The writer was kidnapped by men with automatic weapons, forcing him into the backseat of a shiny new black Lexus. Money was stolen from the kidnap victim's bank account, and he was held at gunpoint, blindfolded for 26 hours. The writer survived a hellish living nightmare due to his own resourceful answers to kidnappers's questions. Reading his weighing of these answers is one of the MANY great parts of this book. Others are the vividness with which he portrays all the harrowing and terrifying and yes, comical moments of this crime. This is an unbelievable story (law enforcement did not even believe the story for a day or 2!) told unbelievably well.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good But An Uneven Balance Of Excitement And Details, December 23, 2010

By 

J. E. Nelson (Plainfield, Illinois) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Birthday Party: A Memoir of Survival (Paperback)

I had first seen the story of Stanley Alpert on an episode of 48 Hours Mystery awhile back. I was quite intrigued by the story of a federal prosecutor kidnapped on the streets of New York City. When the show hinted that some did not believe the story, I was hooked and had to read the story for myself first hand, so at the end when 48 Hours showed the title of the book he wrote, I put it on my to read list.

The Birthday Party: A Memoir of Survival is the autobiographical account of the kidnapping of Stanley Alpert, a US Assistant District Attorney in New York. After spending the evening with a new female acquaintance, grabbing some cookies and a novel from a local store, walking the lady home, and then sauntering his way home himself, Mr. Alpert was kidnapped at gunpoint by 3 assailants. The idea was that he would be held for a short time while the suspects withdrew money using his ATM card. When the suspects found out how much money he had in his savings account, plans changed. Ironically, the day after the abduction was the victim's birthday, which led to no one seriously questioning his absence until almost 24 hours after the abduction. The book discusses the events prior to the kidnapping, the bizarre details of being held captive, and the prosecution of the abductors after the events.

The book did offer a surprisingly descriptive account of what occurred throughout the ordeal and afterward. I was captivated and did not want to put the book down once the action started. However, I found that the book trailed off dramatically once the victim was released. The post kidnapping was a few pages shy of half the book and while I found the behind the scenes view of the criminal investigation and prosecution interesting, the second half of the book was really a let down after an incredibly interesting first half. I am not faulting the author, it is just that sometimes portions of a non-fiction story are not that interesting.

I found the book to be an uneven combination of riveting action and lackluster details of the prosecution. The writing is basic, but descriptive. I thought the very end when the author discusses his current outlook on life to be very touching and did make me look at myself and ask what was really important. I think the book did offer some significant insight on how to conduct yourself when faced with a kidnapping/hostage situation. I am not saying that the book is a must read for this reason, but a thing or two could be learned from the author's experiences.

Overall, I though this was a solid book that I did enjoy reading. If you are a true crime fan, I think this book is definitely worth the read. The events that unfolded throughout the ordeal really does make for a bizarre story and I could see why some might have questioned if the events really did occur.

J. E. Nelson

25 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Poorly written, February 20, 2007

By 

L. Feit (Santa Babara, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Birthday Party: A Memoir of Survival (Hardcover)

I ordered this book after reading a great review in the New York Times and hearing him interviewed on NPR. Both of those were vastly better than the book itself. For this I do not blame the author who is not a writer by trade. I blame the publisher and editors. They couldn't help him out and make it less like a high-school essay? Stream his interview, its a lot more entertaining!