The Birthday Party: A Memoir of Survival (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "In New York City, 1998, crime was down, but not out, as I was to learn the night before my thirty-eighth birthday..." (more)
Key Phrases: velour scarf, cash machine card, New York, Bottom Line, Social Security (more...)

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.)
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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: 320 pages
• Publisher: Putnam Adult (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 (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (73 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #171,045 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

36 of 47 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

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.

19 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Gripping Tale NOT well told, February 21, 2007

By	Elliot Schnapp "NYC lawyer" - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Began this book with great anticipation, having read an extraordinarliy glowing review in the New York Times. Was somewhat shocked at how inferior the writing was, and how frankly unpleasant the author's personality was as it came through the narrative.

First, to give credit where it is due, the events described in the book, especially prior to the author's release from captivity, are inherently interesting, and the author acted with great courage and resourcefulness in a terrifying situation. That having been said, there was little else to like about the book or the author.

Mr. Alpert apparently thought he was channeling Raymond Chandler or Mickey Spillane. I could barely believe that in this day and age, I was actually reading a criminal's confession being described as, "singing like a canary." Alpert also tried to emphasize his toughness by describing a hardscrabble childhood that certainly does not match what I know of the middle class neighborhoods in Brooklyn where both he and I grew up.

Alpert showed a decidedly juvenile side to his personality. Like a teenager, he seemed to think that constantly using profanity lent his words and thoughts some extra measure of authenticity; to me, it was just gratuitous vulgarity. Similarly, I found it offensive to hear this highly educated 38 year old attorney refer to his female contemporaries as "girls" and even "chicks."

The author also could use a serious ego check. Yes, he deserved to be congratulated for his courage and aplomb, but it would have been nice if he had allowed others to do it instead of constantly doing it himself, as, for example, in describing how the NYPD was able to find the criminals so quickly because of his "incredibly detailed" description of the building where he had been held. Over and over, he would describe his strategy, and then, when it worked, commend himself on how brilliant it had been. His inflated sense of self-importance even led him to question whether the lawyer for the oil company he was suing (he headed the environmental litigation department of his office) was being sincere in expressing happiness that he had escaped unharmed; apparently, Alpert thought his legal skills were so unique that the lawyer on the other side would have preferred that he be killed rather than having to face such formidable opposition. Like many assistant US attorneys (of whom I have encountered many in my career), Alpert seems to believe that only he walks on the side of the angels and knows anything about the law.

Alpert also got on my bad side with his New York bashing. During his ordeal, his friends were unable to get into his apartment to check on him because he had refused to leave a spare key with his super; his explanation was that stories of apartment break-ins by building personnel with keys "were as commmon as mosquito bites in summer." Having lived in NY my entire life (nearly 60 years), and having always left spare keys with supers, as have pretty much all of the people I know, the only stories I have heard were of supers preventing water damage to apartments below by getting into locked apartments whose occupants had left the bathtub running before leaving.

All in all, if I were the author's parent, I would say to him, "Stanley, I love you, and you are brilliant, but don't get kidnapped again and don't write any more books."

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good story, horrible man, February 7, 2008

By	Smith (Columbus, OH) - See all my reviews

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

Part of it were difficult to read simply because I hated the author. Stanley Alpert comes across as a self-absorbed jerk who spends much of his book congratulating himself on his achievements, both real (being an assistant US Attorney, managing to survive a harrowing experience) and imaginary (being such a nice human being that God decided to let him live - as if the world weren't full of spectacular people who die early). He's dating a girl, and at the same time he's going out on blind dates and trying to pick up women in the subway. No wonder that, pushing fifty, he's still single.

Having said that, if you can get over Alpert's gigantic ego, you'll probably enjoy this book. It tells his experience when he was kidnapped in the West Village, taken to an apartment in Brooklyn, robbed -- and he managed not only to survive but to gather enough information to help the police capture his kidnappers. It's a very good story, told by a very unlikable man.