The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight: A Novel [Paperback]

Jimmy Breslin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 1997

It was a big bestseller when it was originally published in 1969. It became a major motion picture that provided Robert DeNiro with his first film role. Its title has entered into the language as a catch phrase. And it's terrific fun!

The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight is the story of Papa Baccala, a Brooklyn Mafia boss, and Kid Sally Palumbo, a would-be capo who "couldn't run a gas station at a profit even if he stole the customers' cars". There's also Kid Sally's grandmother, who will go to extravagant lengths to see her boy make his mark. A love interest? Sure. Kid Sally's sister tumbles for an artistic type who rides a bicycle and has recently arrived from Calabria...

The high adventure begins with a six-day bike race that is only partly responsible for a rash of obituary notices reading: "Died. Suddenly". Eventually it all gets worked out in fine Sicilian fashion -- and, in the end, everybody gets his, in a manner of speaking.

Product Details

• Paperback: 249 pages
• Publisher: Back Bay Books; 1st Back Bay ed edition (September 1, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316111740
• ISBN-13: 978-0316111744
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.6 x 8.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #608,027 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Funny Because It's So True - Breslin's Comic Masterpeice, May 28, 1998

By 

John Kenrick ([e-mail]) (NYC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight: A Novel (Paperback)

The finest comedy reveals truths that cannot be appreciated any other way -- such is the case with THE GANG THAT COULDN'T SHOOT STRAIGHT, a book that has kept me laughing for years. As someone who grew up in New York in the 60's and 70's, I knew people just like many of the characters in this book. Breslin has captured a time and a mindset that are, believe it or not, already mostly gone. Debunking the glorification of mobsters in THE GODFATHER, here is a riotously funny but far more truthful portrait of the petty, far from brilliant men who made up so much of the mob. Breslin also manages to draw hilariously insightful portraits of many others who made up the New York of two decades ago. (One example: a courtroom scene involving a confrontation between a Jewish lawyer, a Greek judge, an African American defendant and a Sicilian grandmother has to be read to be believed!) These types are still present in NYC, but attitudes have changed enough to make this book a priceless time capsule. Being of Sicilian descent myself, I find no offense in Breslin's humorous depictions. From a mob funeral to the simple spectacle on an old woman shooing a dog off her front stoop, his word pictures are as insightful as they are uproarious. Yes, the comedy becomes downright farcical at times, but so does real life. I've read many of Breslin's books and columns over the years, and consider him a superb writer. For my money, GANG is still his best and funniest work, a book that remains delightful read after read.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars If Fredo Corleone Headed His Own Family...., August 14, 2001

By 

Gypsychick "gypsychick" (miami, fl USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight: A Novel (Paperback)

It may very well have turned out like the rollicking racketeers in this novel. Film has elevated the Mafioso to either a Brando-like brilliant elder statesman, calculating and controlled Pacino or overweight but sexy Tony Soprano. Breslin spins all those ideas off the map with a tale about "regular guys" who happen to be mobsters and are, in fact, none too successful at it. Graphic and brutal, while maintaining and air of both satire and farce, this story is, with all its laughs, probably closest to the truth. After you worship at the altar of Vito Corleone, meet this other family in a very funny novel in which every mobster has the IQ of Fredo.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Esmo the driver, who was driving..., November 20, 2004

By 

Ryan McNabb (Ooltewah, TN USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight: A Novel (Paperback)

This is a painfully hilarious book. Just after The Godfather, and long before the subsequent mafia deluge we would all see in books and movies, Jimmy Breslin created the worst crime family in the world, the hilarious Looking Glass image of the Corleones. They're dangerous, sure, but usually only by accident, and as long as you're standing in front of their guns you'll be allright. The Old Man is afraid his car is booby trapped, so every morning he has his wife start the engine for him. Big Jelly Catalano has a stolen circus lion in his basement that he feeds his victims to. An obituary for a gangster reads "He died of natural causes as his heart stopped suddenly when six men stuck knives into it." It's pretty over the top stuff, and not for the squeamish. It's one of the few books I've read that made me laugh so hard my chest was sore the next day. Highly recommended.