258:. Billy quickly realizes that he's been set up, and that Schultz has arranged for his best hitmen to kill Drew as he fears she will implicate him in Bo's murder. Billy uses the allowance Berman provided him with to have flowers and expensive gifts delivered to Drew, making it impossible for her to be harmed without attracting attention. The ruse buys enough time for Harvey, whom Billy contacted beforehand, to pick up Drew and take her out of the country to safety. Billy, questioned as to why he bought the gifts, lies and says that he bought them on impulse without admitting his relationship with Drew. Schultz is acquitted, but his enemy, federal prosecutor
273:. Against Berman's advice that going after Dewey would not sit well with the other gangs, Schultz decides to assassinate his enemy and orders Billy to case his apartment block. Just as Billy returns, Mafia gunmen storm the restaurant; Schultz, Berman, and their bodyguards are killed. Billy is small enough to escape out of a bathroom window and returns in time for the dying Berman to give Billy the code to Schultz's personal safe. Billy sneaks into the hospital and notes down the delirious Schultz's
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315:; the latter also shares poetical evocations of the Bronx in which the author himself grew up. Doctorow has described his novel as "a young man's sentimental education in the tribal life of gangsters". A reviewer saw in it "Doctorow’s shapeliest piece of work: a richly detailed report of a 15-year-old boy's journey from childhood to adulthood".
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In fact, the act of speaking and its interpretation is at the heart of the novel. Through paying close attention to the gangster's death-bed ramblings, Billy finds the clue to locate
Schultz's hidden treasure. And as he himself describes, such attention also leads to his equally valuable discovery of
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and black tie on a tugboat. Trying to interpret that image prompted him to ponder "the culture of gangsterism" and its mythic appeal. The novel leads off with Billy's description of Bo
Weinberg's execution (before backtracking to account for how he got there): a performance of which Doctorow
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While most reviewers responded to
Doctorow's verbal dexterity and reinterpretation of historical facts, they found the ending unconvincingly sentimental. And for one interpreter, at least, the entire plot was grounded in sentimentality, "pure and defiant daydream" based on pulp fiction, its
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is the first sentence that appears in the book, and it actually delivered the character Billy to me. He was sort of built into the diction and the syntax, and even the rhythm of the sentence gave me the way he breathed." With this as a start, the novel develops into what is largely a
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at the town church. One afternoon, Drew goes for a country hike with Billy and asks him to tell her the truth about Bo's death. She then scrambles down the side of a waterfall and swims in the pool underneath, where Billy comforts her. Eventually, the two start an affair.
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the verbal means to preserve as a lasting memory the lesson of what is otherwise a purely destructive force. "Whereas
Schultz's rage appropriates everything to his need to destroy, Billy's words bear permanent witness to whatever is threatened with impermanence."
284:, knows where it is. Billy then returns to the Bronx and moves back in with his mother. A year later, Drew, having given birth to Billy's child, gives him sole custody. Using the contents of Schultz's safe, Billy is able to attend college and fight in
196:. When Billy demonstrates his skill at juggling, an amused Schultz calls him a "capable boy" and tips him. Billy later finds and infiltrates Schultz's offices without being seen, resulting in Schultz's accountant and trusted advisor
211:. Believing that Weinberg is a traitor, Schultz has him and his girlfriend, a socialite named Drew Preston, kidnapped at gunpoint. Billy follows them out to a riverboat, where he witnesses Schultz having Weinberg thrown into the
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agreeing to take him into the gang. To avoid the stigma of having an Irish boy work for a Jewish crime boss, Billy changes his last name to "Bathgate" after a local street.
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monologue as he is dying, using clues from this to locate the exact spot where Dutch has buried all of his money.
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The Mafia tries to intimidate Billy into giving up the money, but he convinces them that only
Schultz's lawyer,
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has called "intricate historical brocades". Earlier novels by
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Jack London, Hemingway and the
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with his mother. One afternoon, Billy is present when infamous Jewish
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358:"All Past National Book Critics Circle Award Winners and Finalists"
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Billy Behan is an impoverished fifteen-year-old living in
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424:. American Academy of Arts and Letters. Archived from
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1990 Pulitzer Prize
Nominated Finalists (Runners Up)
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All the Time in the World: New and Selected Stories
323:explained that "the very first sentence I wrote in
32:This article is about the book. For the film, see
1013:National Book Critics Circle Award-winning works
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242:. Billy poses as Schulz's ward with Drew as his
857:Citizen Doctorow: Notes on Art & Politics
808:Lives of the Poets: Six Stories and a Novella
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998:PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction-winning works
269:and sets up an office in the back room of a
238:as part of his plan to avoid conviction for
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532:Ann Tyler, "An American Boy in Gangland",
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552:Author E. L. Doctorow", WUWF Live Radio,
299:is the eighth in a series of what critic
234:and is taken with him when he settles in
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564:"Billy Bathgate", Donald E. Pease,
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978:American novels adapted into films
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92:Random House
767:City of God
713:Big as Life
611:1 Feb. 1989
591:Gary Soto,
569:13 May 1989
538:26 Feb 1989
522:5 June 2004
282:Dixie Davis
240:tax evasion
205:Bo Weinberg
198:Otto Berman
150:, the 1990
957:Categories
832:Nonfiction
627:pp.144 -60
471:14 January
432:2015-05-08
344:References
301:James Wood
213:East River
915:Wakefield
774:The March
736:Loon Lake
687:Works by
402:10 August
372:10 August
306:Loon Lake
292:The novel
271:chophouse
244:governess
215:with his
183:The Bronx
88:Publisher
236:Onondaga
232:gun moll
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473:2014
404:2014
374:2014
309:and
103:1989
225:gay
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