Gangster [Import] [Paperback]

Lorenzo Carcaterra (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 382 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster (2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743207203
• ISBN-13: 978-0743207201
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 5.8 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (63 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,104,190 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A 'family' saga that goes deeper, February 5, 2001

By 

Ron Franscell, Author of 'Sourtoe Cocktail Club' - See all my reviews

This review is from: Gangster (Hardcover)

Gangland -- or at least its literary environs -- hasn't been the same since the late Mario Puzo's "The Godfather" pumped a little ba-da-bing into the phrase "family saga."

Lorenzo Carcaterra`s "Gangster" is a rich tale about the rise of an Italian mobster, from his roots in turn-of-the-century Italy to the mean streets of New York City. By hook or crook -- mostly crook -- he rises to the highest echelons of the underworld and, having survived the bullets and mayhem, is dying rather ignominiously as an old man. And his likeliest successor is uncertain he wants to claim his iniquitous inheritance. Sound familiar?

Well, fuhgeddaboudit. There's one word even the most astute reader will not find in "Gangster": Godfather.

Puzo admitted he never met an "honest-to-God real-life gangster," but Carcaterra ate, drank and lived with them most of his life. The author of "Sleepers" and "Apaches" knows these wiseguys intimately, and he understands the public`s long-standing fascination with the Mafia. These characters are not denizens of his vivid and proven imagination; they were his friends and neighbors in Hell's Kitchen, the tough New York neighborhood where he grew up. The son of a convicted murderer didn't hang out with the kids of doctors and lawyers. The goodfellas of Carcaterra's youth weren't today's Russian mobsters and urban street gangs; the best of the Old World gangsters embraced friendship, loyalty and revenge as equally noble. And those very "qualities" have played a role in each of Carcaterra's books.

His familiarity with the underworld, however peripheral, shines through in "Gangster." Yes, comparisons between Angelo Vestieri and Vito Corleone are inevitable, but they are different in significant ways, too.

"Gangster" is not "The Godfather." Both are eloquent works on the mob oeuvre. "Gangster" is more panoramic, an epic that embraces not only a handful of flawed men and women on the margins of society, but their time and place, too. "Gangster" is a story of fathers and sons, not just godfathers and guns. It is a complex morality play in which the reader occasionally roots for the villains and frowns upon the good guys. Carcaterra knows the underworld's rhythms and philosophy as well as he knows its dirty streets, rain-slicked piers and smoke-filled social clubs.

Gangland is Carcaterra's country.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Powerful stuff!!!, August 20, 2002

By 

Beverley Strong (Australia) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Gangster (Mass Market Paperback)

There are certain mild mannered individuals like me, who adore gangster and mafia stuff.I'd thoroughly recommend this book to afficionados or people who enjoyed "Godfather".
Gabe is a young boy who has been raised by foster parents,mostly by people who are only in it for the money-the government allowances made to couples who are willing to house,feed and send to school,orphaned children.He's a lonely little boy who meets Angelo Vestieri,a local gangster in a New York district.Angelo befriends Gabe and introduces him to his friend and off-sider,Pudge. The two gangsters virtually adopt the boy and give him a secure home in a loving environment,for the first time in his life although, at the same time, they are instilling in him the things he needs to know to follow the way of life of gangsters.This story follows Gabes life through to adulthood when he begins to question the way of life mapped out for him by his mentors.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Carcaterra Hits a Homer!, June 23, 2001

By 

"auger77777" (Eau Claire, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Gangster (Hardcover)

I just finished GANGSTER, and it was definitely a cannot-put-down book. I have read all of Carcaterra's books and found them well-written and riveting (particularly SLEEPERS). But I must confess, when I started GANGSTER, having read other reviews, I was expecting a so-so rehash of Puzo's GODFATHER. I was pleasantly surprised to find a book that was not only original, but one that was both entertaining and spine-chilling. I will admit that the ending was fairly predictable (in my opinion), but this did not detract from the book itself. The main character, Angelo Vestieri, was a gangster who was the ultimate in unpredictability. This left the ending open to any number of possibilities. It is obvious that Lorenzo Carcaterra knows the streets of Hell's Kitchen, as well as the people who rule there. It takes a writer of his caliber to create a story of this nature, in which the reader feels such a closeness to the "bad guys" as to engender feelings of loss when one of them is eliminated. I look forward to Carcaterra's next work. He just keeps getting better.