Famous for answering the question of why he robbed banks by saying, "That's where the money is," Willie Sutton (1901-1980) and his gangs knocked over more than 100 banks. He spent time in many prisons--and escaped from nearly all of them. In Sutton, a captivating and compelling biographical novel, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist J.R. Moehringer, author of the bestselling memoir The Tender Bar, has "captured" the life and career of the celebrated bank robber with style, insight and panache.
The story, told in Sutton's voice, which gives the book its tone--gently brusque and sarcastic, witty and laconic--begins Christmas Eve 1969, outside the Attica Correctional facility. Gov. Nelson Rockefeller has commuted the sentence of Sutton, now 68. Before he starts his new life, he agrees to spend Christmas Day with a Newsday reporter and photographer. After taking a flight (his first ever) into Manhattan, he gives them a tour around New York, stopping at places that were important in his life and career, culminating at the spot where, in 1952, the story goes, he killed Arnold Schuster, who had turned him in. (Willie didn't kill him. A Mafia boss had him taken down.) Moehringer's tale unfolds in a back-and-forth manner, as each location or question from the reporters triggers Willie's memory.
Sutton is a terrific book. Don't be put off by the subject matter. Saying Sutton is a novel about bank robbing is like saying The World According to Garp is a novel about wrestling. They are, of course, but they're also about so much more. --Tom Lavoie, former publisher