Customer Reviews

Lullaby and Good Night

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The back cover of this book says that Emily Stanton is charged with murder and stands trial in one of the most startling cases ever. That may be true, but the murder doesn't come until page 364 of a 453 page book!

Emily got on my nerves. She is mostly spineless, naive beyond belief, and easily manipulated. She doesn't seem to learn anything from her mistakes. It's hard to side with her.

However I did enjoy the story of New York in the '20's and '30's that was interwoven with Emily's story. It really gave me a feeling of the flavor of those times.

Lullaby and Good Night was a good story, but predictable. The reader knew up front that Emily would not come out ahead until the end. Also, Emily was very frustrating because she was so naive--unrealistically naive. Despite these frustrations with the book, I really enjoyed the description of New York City in the late 20's as well as the descriptions of the characters. The book kept my attention all the way to the end.

Emily Stanton is loosely based on the real-life Vivian Gordon, who took on Tammany and lost in the heyday of its corrupt life. Emily's story is a bit different than Vivian's, and Stadiem and Bugliosi's descriptions of New York in the 20's and 30s - the gamblers, speakeasies and theatres, certainly makes for a page-turner of a story. Unfortunately, however, even if Emily couldn't see what was going to happen to her 10 pages, or 50 pages, ahead of time, I could, and that makes for an ultimately unsatisfying read. I would prefer to be surprised by a story, rather than muttering to myself "don't go there, Emily!" The novel is definitely worth reading for the backdrop of New York during Prohibition, with its descriptions of Texas Guinan, Arnold Rothstein and Tammany in all their seedy glory.