Books |
Sutton
J.R. Moehringer
By
Published: Oct 03, 2012
Category:
Fiction
It’s not that I couldn’t put down J.R. Moehringer’s The Tender Bar. It was more like, after reading it nonstop for a few hours, his memoir became part of me. And you know how it goes when that happens: The only way you’ll take this book from me is to pry it from my cold dead hands.
Verdict: the best book I read that year.
So I couldn’t wait to read “Sutton,” Moehringer’s debut novel. The book is loosely based on the life of Willie Sutton (1901-1980), the bank robber who probably never said his often quoted line: “Why did I rob banks? Because that’s where the money is." From the late 1920s until the early 1050s, Sutton separated about $2 million from nearly 100 banks. His crimes were exhaustively researched and planned. He was a master of disguises. He never hurt anyone. And he was a New Yorker; he had the full attention of the media. Folk hero? Bigger than Dillinger. [To buy the book from Amazon, click here. For the Kindle edition, click here.]
But that’s a banal description. Here’s Moehringer:
Smarter than Machine Gun Kelly, saner than Pretty Boy Floyd, more likable than Legs Diamond, more peaceable than Dutch Schultz, more romantic than Bonnie and Clyde, Sutton saw bank robbery as high art and went about it with an artist’s single-minded zeal.
The frame of the book is Sutton’s release from jail on Christmas Eve, 1969. He’s made a deal with Newsday; on Christmas, one of its photographers and reporters will drive him around his old haunts in New York while he reminisces. The distance between then and now — he’s never been on a plane, never heard John Lennon — should be illuminating.
And it is, in large part because of the liberties Moehringer has taken with the official story. (Which is itself suspect; in Sutton’s two memoirs, he frequently disagrees with himself.) The narrator of the book isn’t Sutton in his prime. He’s been in prison for half of his life; he’s 69, and ill, maybe dying. His priorities are not those of the hippie photographer or the straight-arrow reporter.
Can Sutton talk? That’s like asking if Moehringer can write. He can toss off a great line: “The sound of men in cages — nothing can compare with it.” He’s uncovered great trivia: There are 250,000 lights bulbs at Coney Island; no wonder Coney Island is the first thing seen by ships at sea. And because his Sutton is a great reader in prison, it’s completely in character when he just goes off: "People are already mad for diamonds, but people don’t know the half. The haunting beauty of stolen diamonds in a black silk purse at two in the morning — it’s like being the first person to ever see the stars."
Like most memoirs, real or imagined, the early years are the most vivid. Sutton’s childhood is horrific, right up there with Frank McCourt’s. He tries to live straight — his first job is in a bank — but love gets in the way. Bess Endner is rich and beautiful, One kiss, and he knows: “His future is being reshaped." That romance leads him to crime, and crime leads him away from Bess. Half a century later, life has taught him one lesson above all others: “Money and love. That’s all that matters.” On Christmas Day, Bess is the past he wants most to see.
Powerful stuff, and it will carry you deep into the book. And there, if you are like me, you will stall. Sutton was almost as famous for his jailbreaks as for his robberies. And so we see him breaking out. And again. And again. If you’ve seen “The Shawshank Redemption” — and who hasn’t? — you’ve seen a great escape. Imagine seeing that several times.
Am I making too much of a few repetitive scenes? Perhaps. But this is J.R. Moehringer, one of the best writers we’ve got. We don ‘t want him to make a single mistake. When he does? Skip a few pages. Look away. And then dive back into a tale well told.
