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The Iron Will Of Shoeshine Cats (2009)

by Hesh Kestin(Favorite Author)
3.91 of 5 Votes: 1
ISBN
0976717786 (ISBN13: 9780976717782)
languge
English
publisher
Dzanc Books
review 1: This book was a ton of fun. Witty dialogue, really fun characters. Kestin most certainly writes this with a tongue-in-cheek approach: I love the details of the overly wrought cliffhanger at the end of each chapter, it definitely lends it that pulp-fictiony aura, as does the hindsighted narration. I think I would have given this book five stars for its fun factor, if it had not been for its horrendous female characters: truly, every woman in this book is a bitch, a whore, or somebody's dead mother god-rest-her-soul. That aspect of this book is simultaneously embarrassing and yet, somehow, expected given the tone and periodicity Kestin is trying to achieve. I still think he could have done far better on that front. But just for the literary references and repartee, this book... more is worth a read.
review 2: was a letdown. After a promising start in which a scholarly college student becomes the heir to a brutal underworld leader. It turns into a big love fest. The mob-leader is painted as a well read cosmopolitan man who does ugly deeds for noble reasons: a true man of the people a modern day jewish urban robin hood. Add to this the fact that the story is chockfull of details (movie times, current restaurants, political discussions meant to lend this story a you-are there realism to the late sixties, but feel like an hour’s worth of internet research into nostalgia-centered web-sites and you got a novel that feels like a cheat; a waste of time. less
Reviews (see all)
nnvk
A fun (and funny) romp through the world of 1960's Jewish gangsters in New York.
lisa
An interesting look at a Jewish gangster in New York in 1963.
maria
awesome
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