B8
B
Jonathan Yardley
garde writers and artists of the 1920s, and it is the same challenge confronted —admittedly on a considerably less exalted level — by the writer who wants to retell a tale that already has been told too many times over. Sometimes this entails the discovery of new material, sometimes a reinterpretation of the story, sometimes a fresh, original prose style — and sometimes merely a
gimmick.
That is what Wendy Moffat came up with in
her new biography of E.M. Forster, “A Great Unrecorded History,” reviewed in this space last week, in which she focuses single-mindedly if not obsessively on Forster’s homosexuality, and that is what Jonathan Eig has come up with in “Get Capone,” which is a fairly straightforward biography of America’s most notorious criminal masquerading, as its subtitle proclaims, as a startling revelation of how he was sent to prison by federal investigators. In fact, though Eig unearths some mildly interesting details not to be found in other accounts, anyone who has read much about Capone — and I’ve probably read more than is good for me — is not going to find much here that he or she already does not know. At least four full-bore biographies of Capone already have been published — John Kobler’s, published in 1971, probably remains the best — and though “Get Capone” is competent enough, its lackluster prose is unlikely to attract anyone except the most over-the-top Capone aficionado. The only important respect in which Eig really
differs from his predecessors is that he tries to humanize Capone, even to make him into something approximating . . . a nice guy. This may have something to do with his sources — “I interviewed and gained valuable insights from several members of the Capone family,” he reports — and it may have something to do with wanting to “make it new,” but anyone familiar with Capone’s long, sordid history will have a hard time believing Eig’s claim that “I got to know Capone the man, not the myth.” This, after all, is “the man” as Eig presents him to us: “He would grow up to be a man who fished, hunted, boxed a little bit, and enjoyed watching almost every kind of sports event. He loved spending money but never bothered saving any. He seldom left the house unshaved, and prided himself on dressing well. He was a man’s man if ever there were one.” And: “a personable man, a
Crook, murderer . . . nice guy?
“M
GET CAPONE The Secret Plot That Captured America’s Most Wanted Gangster
By Jonathan Eig Simon & Schuster. 468 pp. $28
ake it new”: That was Ezra Pound’s famous challenge to the avant
Because Capone was so adept at staying
1925 ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO
Al Capone
man who seemed genuinely concerned for and fairly involved with his family, a man who seemed to have successfully differentiated his working life and his emotional life. Either he was a good actor or else he really did have a human side.” And: “During [medical treatment in prison], he made a friend of his doctor, Herbert M. Goddard, a nationally respected ear, nose, and throat man, who served as the prison’s physician. Said Dr. Goddard: ‘In my seven years’ experience, I have never seen a prisoner so kind, cheery, and accommodating.... He has brains. He would have made good anywhere, at anything.’ ”
Of course Capone had a “human side”; so did
Hitler, who loved art. But having a few qualities that the rest of us can identify with doesn’t turn a monster into the person you want living next door, and make no mistake about it, Capone was amonster. Just how many people were murdered by his own hand and how many by others at his orders will never be known, not least because, as Eig points out (as have others before him), Capone was skilled at keeping himself once or twice removed from the violence
Bookshop
BOOKS FOR SALE BOOKS FOR SALE
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
Bartleby’s Books
Old & Rare Books
We Buy Collections & Estates Autographs & Manuscripts
www.bartlebysbooks.com 1132 29th St. NW. (202) 298-0486 Mon.–Sat. 10:30–5:30, Sunday 12–4
CAPITOL HILL BOOKS
657 C St. S.E. , Opposite Eastern Market
202-544-1621. Open everyday 'til 6
General Stock
USEDBOOKS
ATTIC BOOKS 100Wash. Blvd. LAUREL,MD. Daily 11-7; Sun 1-5; Closed Tues. 50% OFF SALE
SECOND STORY BOOKS’ ROCKVILLEWAREHOUSE TAKE AN ADDITIONAL
10% OFF EXISTING DISCOUNTS
on BOOKS and GRAPHICS only
WITH THIS AD – ONLY THIS LOCATION 12160 Parklawn Dr., Rockville,MD Sun-Wed 10-8 Thurs-Sat 10-9
(301) 770-0477 Red Line Twinbrook Sta.
Blue Plate Books
Feeding Your Need to Read
2261 Valley Ave, Winchester, VA
540-66-BOOKS
www.blueplatebooks.com
EDITING
BOOKS EDITED, Ready for Agents and Publishers. Reports, Dissertations and Theses. Call 24 hours. CBS. 800-721-0720
MYSTERY&THRILLERBOOKS
Still the onlymystery bookstore inMD&DCarea
Mystery LovesCompany Booksellers
202 S.Morris St.,OXFORD,MD
Call 410-226-0010 or 1-800-538-0042
mysterylovescompany.com
WRITING SERVICES
LITERARY DESIGN
WRITING EDITING FICTION NON-FICTION
Call (540) 338-4636 or (703) 979-8162 Email:
literarydesign@infionline.net
READ BEFORE YOU RESERVE. RESTAURANT REVIEWS IN THE SUNDAY MAGAZINE.
EVERY DAY THERE ARE THOUSANDS OF WAYS THE POST HELPS YOU.
If you don’t get it, you don’t get it.
SF612Tiph 2x3
2467 18th St. NW in Adams Morgan
2 floors of quality books on all subjects. Come see our classical CD collection.
Idle Time Books
Open 11AM-10PM everyday 202-232-4774
The Lantern Bryn Mawr
Used and Rare Books 3241 P Street NW
Tu-F 11-4. Sat 11-5. Sun 12-4. 202-333-3222
VIRGINIA
RESTON'S USEDBOOKSHOP
Open Every Day (703) 435-9772
1623Washington Plaza, Lake Anne Village Center
Royal Oak Bookshop
207 South Royal Avenue
Front Royal, VA 22630 540-635-7070
www.royaloakbookshop.com
MARYLAND
ALL BOOKS CONSIDERED
Half price when you buy 5 or more
Open 7 Days, 12-5 on Antique Row 301-929-0036
10408 MontgomeryAve. Kensington,MD
(410) 750-9235 Daily Hours 11-6 8304 Main Street, Ellicott City,MD 21043
Kensington Row Bookshop
3786 Howard Ave. Kensington,MD
(301) 949.9416 Mon-Fri 12-6; Sat 10-6; Sun 12-5
www.kensingtonrowbookshop.com
Quill & Brush, ABAA
First Editions and Collectible Books 1137 Sugarloaf Mtn. Rd. Dickerson, MD
www.qbbooks.com 301-874-3200
SILVER SPRING BOOKS
General and Used Books. Fine Selections
938 Bonifant St, Silver Spring, Md. 301-587-7484
5 Days 10:30-6:30. Sunday 10:30-5. Closed Tuesday
Printed using recycled fiber.
Gramp's Attic Books
BOOKS FOR ALL INTEREST
beyond the law’s reach for the vicious crimes his syndicate committed, federal agents were reduced to a strategy of “ignoring serious crimes and charging the suspect with a related crime that is easier to prove.” For Capone this was tax evasion, and the case against him on that account was devised by George E.Q. Johnson, the U.S. attorney for Chicago: “He would use Prohibition agents to harass the bootleggers and to cut off their income, but he would give up on trying to convict the gangsters for selling booze. It was too difficult to prove, and besides, jurors were almost always drinking men and disinclined to convict. But tax law was different: A person paid or he didn’t. And jurors, who paid their taxes, had no qualms about sending cheats to jail.” Eig has tracked down Johnson’s papers, which add some bits and pieces to what has been known for seven decades: that Capone was tried and found guilty on multiple counts of violating tax law. In May 1931, the judge announced that “the aggregate sentence of the defendant is eleven years in the penitentiary and fines aggregating $50,000,” which Eig calls “by far, the stiffest sentence ever handed down in a tax case.” There was then, and remains to this day, widespread feeling that Capone had been railroaded on trumped-up charges that a more fair-minded jury and judge would have rejected as unsustainable, a judgment echoed by Capone’s most recent biographer, Laurence Bergreen. The case raises uncomfortable questions of ends and means: They got the right guy but on the wrong count. Capone was released from prison in November 1939 and died in Miami Beach in January 1947, at age 48, of various complications resulting from syphilis. It was a deservedly painful end to a vile life.
yardleyj@washpost.com
LITERARY CALENDAR
MAY 18-22, 2010
18 TUESDAY | 5:30 P.M. Arthur C. Brooks
discusses his new book, “The Battle: How the Fight Between Free Enterprise and Big Government Will Shape America’s Future,” as part of the annual Bradley Lecture at the American Enterprise Institute, Wohlstetter Conference Center (12th floor), 1150 17th St. NW. Call 202-862-4875. 7 P.M. Sebastian Junger discusses and signs “War,” an account of 14 months embedded with a platoon of the 173rd Airborne Brigade in Afghanistan’s Korengal Valley, at Politics and Prose Bookstore, 5015 Connecticut Ave. NW, 202-364-1919. He will also speak on Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. at Borders Books, Route 7 at Columbia Pike, Baileys Crossroads, Va., 703-998-0404.
19 WEDNESDAY | 6:30 P.M. Attorney Ian
Graham discusses and signs “Unbillable Hours: A True Story,” his account of a pro bono case that changed his life, at Barnes & Noble-Metro Center, 555 12th St. NW, 202-347-0176. He will be joined by Mario Rocha, the young man whose wrongful conviction Graham chronicles. 7 P.M. Gospel artist Kirk Franklin discusses and signs his new book, “The Blueprint: A Plan for Living Above Life’s Storms,” at Borders Books, 931 Capital Centre Blvd., Largo, Md., 301-499-2173.
20 THURSDAY | 7 P.M. Newsweek senior
editor Jonathan Alter discusses his new book, “The Promise: President Obama, Year One,” at Politics and Prose Bookstore, 202-364-1919. 7 P.M. Washington Post writer Nancy Trejos discusses and signs her new book, “Hot (Broke) Messes: How to Have Your Latte and Drink It Too,” at Barnes & Noble-Bethesda, 4801 Bethesda Ave., Bethesda, Md., 301-986-1761. 7 P.M. The Library of Congress concludes its 2009-10 literary season with a reading by the U.S. poet laureate, Kay Ryan, from her new collection, “The Best of It: New and Selected Poems,” in the Thomas Jefferson Bldg., Coolidge Auditorium, 10 First St. SE, 202-707-5394.
22 SATURDAY | 5 P.M. Children’s author
Chris D’Lacey reads from “Dark Fire,” her new fantasy novel (part of the Last Dragon Chronicles series for young readers), at Barnes & Noble-Tysons Corner Center, 1961 Chain Bridge Rd., McLean, Va., 703-506-2937.
For more literary events, go to
washingtonpost.com/gog/ and search “book event.”
that was everywhere around him. The empire that he built on bootlegging, gambling, prostitution and protection was held together by violence. Most of the people who got in the way of bullets were other gangsters, but more than a few policemen fell victim as well, and Capone left a legacy of corruption at every level of American life that has thrived to this day and will be expunged only by a global cataclysm. Eig, who has also written books on Lou Gehrig
and Jackie Robinson, understands all this but is more interested in whitewashing Capone — or romanticizing him as the tough yet tender protagonist of a Hollywood gangster movie — than in facing his appalling record head-on. He exonerates Capone of complicity in the Valentine’s Day Massacre of 1929, in which seven members of BugsMoran’s gang were murdered in cold blood by assassins wearing policemen’s uniforms; not very persuasively, he gives us “the man who may have gotten away with the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre: William White.” He goes to great lengths to portray Eliot Ness, the federal Prohibition agent who led the “Untouchables,” as a publicity-seeker who “cared too much about getting his name in the papers” and too little about effective law enforcement. This probably is a useful piece of demythologizing, but it also plays into his strategy of humanizing Capone, in this instance by humanizing one of his opponents in a negative way.
KLMNO
SUNDAY, MAY 16, 2010
WASHINGTON BESTSELLERS
HARDCOVER
FICTION
1 DEAD IN THE FAMILY (Ace, $25.95)
1
By Charlaine Harris. This 10th Sookie Stackhouse tale delves into family dynamics and romantic liaisons.
2 THE 9TH JUDGMENT (Little, Brown, $27.99)
3 INNOCENT (Grand Central, $27.99)
2
By James Patterson. The Women’s Murder Club works to find the link between seemingly isolated crimes.
1
By Scott Turow. Rusty Savitch is a murder suspect once more in this “Presumed Innocent” sequel.
4 DELIVER US FROM EVIL (Grand Central, $27.99)
5 THE HELP (Amy Einhorn, $24.95)
3
By David Baldacci. Covert operative Shaw returns to thwart a Ukrainian trading in nuclear arms and slavery.
43
By Kathryn Stockett. A frank chronicle of the lives of several black maids working in a town in 1960s Miss.
6 THE DOUBLE COMFORT SAFARI CLUB 7 THE SHADOW OF YOUR SMILE
3
(Pantheon, $24.95). By Alexander McCall Smith. The new No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency tale.
4
(Simon & Schuster, $25.99). By Mary Higgins Clark. A tale of money, murder and a quest for beatification.
8 ISLAND BENEATH THE SEA (Harper, $26.99) 9 HANNAH’S LIST (Mira, $24.95)
1
By Isabel Allende. A young slave, her master and their shared fates in the colony that would become Haiti.
2
By Debbie Macomber. A recent widower is left suggestions for a new mate in a note from his late wife.
10 THIS BODY OF DEATH (Harper, $28.99)
3
By Elizabeth George. A new suspense tale featuring the astute, aristocratic Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley.
NONFICTION/GENERAL
1 SPOKEN FROM THE HEART (Scribner, $30)
1
By Laura Bush. The former first lady’s reflections on eight years in the White House and what came before.
2 ABRAHAM LINCOLN’S GETTYSBURG ADDRESS
(Norton, $27.95). By Michael Lewis The murky world of financial derivatives.
1
(Threshold Editions, $16.99). By Jack E. Levin & Mark R. Levin. An illustrated edition of a seminal document.
3 THE BIG SHORT: INSIDE THE DOOMSDAY MACHINE 4 OPRAH: A BIOGRAPHY (Crown, $30)
By Kitty Kelley. The celebrity biographer’s unauthorized look at the life of the media mogul and talk show host.
5 THE BLUEPRINT: OBAMA’S PLAN TO SUBVERT THE
BATTLE OF THE LITTLE BIG HORN (Viking, $30)
By Nathaniel Philbrick. Clarifying a bit of history.
2
CONSTITUTION AND BUILD AN IMPERIAL PRESIDENCY
(Lyons, $22.95). By Ken Blackwell & Ken Klukowski
6 THE LAST STAND: CUSTER, SITTING BULL, AND THE 7 THIS TIME TOGETHER: LAUGHTER AND REFLECTION 8 CHELSEA CHELSEA BANG BANG
(Grand Central, $25.99). By Chelsea Handler A new batch of essays from the comedian.
9 CITIZEN YOU: DOING YOUR PART TO CHANGE
1
THE WORLD (Crown, $24). By Jonathan Tisch with Karl Weber. Tips from the successful entrepreneur.
10 THE PIONEER WOMAN COOKS: RECIPES FROM AN
1
ACCIDENTAL COUNTRY GIRL (Morrow, $27.50)
By Ree Drummond. From the big city to cattle ranch.
Rankings reflect sales for the week ended May 9, 2010. The charts may not be reproduced without permission from Nielsen BookScan. Copyright © 2010 by Nielsen BookScan. (The right-hand column of numbers represents weeks on this list, which premiered in Book World on Jan. 11, 2004. The bestseller lists in print alternate between hardcover and paperback.)
6
Paperback Bestsellers at
voices.washingtonpost.com/political-bookworm
IN STYLE: Dominique Browning
(Harmony, $25). By Carol Burnett. The award-winning comedian and actress looks back.
9 1 4 8 4
FRANCES PALMER
BOOK WORLD
THIS WEEK
COMING IN STYLE
MONDAY Elizabeth George’s This Body of Death is the
latest mystery to feature aristocratic Inspector Lynley.
TUESDAY The Lonely Polygamist, by Brady Udall, is an audacious, funny novel about a henpecked husband with multiple wives.
WEDNESDAY Roddy Doyle completes his trilogy of novels about an IRA hit man in The Dead Republic. A dicey romantic challenge lies in wait for the heroine of Emily
Giffin’s new novel, Heart of the Matter. And a roundup of memoirs.
THURSDAY The Secret Lives of Somerset Maugham,
by Selina Hastings.
FRIDAY Slow Love: How I Lost My Job, Put on My Pajamas & Found Happiness, by Dominique Browning.
SATURDAY The brutal 1857 murder of a dentist in New York City is the springboard for 31 Bond Street, a novel by
Ellen Horan.
voices.washingtonpost.com/political-bookworm
Join us as we debate the issues and authors making news today.
6
Read our blog, Political Bookworm, which focuses on books that stir the national political conversation.
NF407 1x.5
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140 |
Page 141 |
Page 142 |
Page 143 |
Page 144 |
Page 145 |
Page 146 |
Page 147 |
Page 148 |
Page 149 |
Page 150 |
Page 151 |
Page 152 |
Page 153 |
Page 154 |
Page 155 |
Page 156 |
Page 157 |
Page 158 |
Page 159 |
Page 160 |
Page 161 |
Page 162 |
Page 163 |
Page 164 |
Page 165 |
Page 166