Tag Archives: Jimmy Breslin

12.17.24
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JIMMY BRESLIN/The Man Who Told The Truth

He created ” New Journalism”. He changed the work of a columnist from punditry to storytelling. Jimmy Breslin was unique, one of a kind, and the biography by Richard Esposito JIMMY BRESLIN The Man Who Told The Truth is excellent. Son of Sam, Kennedy Assassination, The Central Park Five, the big stories and those of the lessor known that make up the fabric of New York City.

Breslin was not an easy man to either live or work with and Esposito defines him perfectly. ” Nearly everyone who met him has a Breslin story: Pugnacious, Passionate, Bombastic, Bully Buffoon, Heavy drinking, Grandstanding miserable bastard. With all of this baggage Breslin was the very best at The Trib, The Herald, The Herald Tribune, The Daily News, New York Newsday. He wrote in great company, Pete Hamill, Tom Wolfe, and in the shadow of Damon Runyon.

His columns rose from the neighborhoods of New York, especially his home turf in Queens. Tips and clues came from neighborhood bars eschewing news releases. He was a street reporter disappearing into where the stories and truths morphed into his columns. Breslin was rarely in the newsroom and then only at deadline. With whom did Son of Sam communicate? J.B. of course. Who had the insight to enlighten us of the “Gravedigger” and of the Priest who gave the Last Rights upon the death and burial of John Kennedy. Breslin with his great “storytelling” so often missed by others in a sea of ink, photos and noise.

In many ways JIMMY BRESLIN is a story of New York, by a New Yorker, for New Yorkers. It is a kaleidoscope of the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and Esposito doesn’t miss an important player of scene. One great storyteller recognizes another.

11.06.13
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THE FRIENDS OF EDDIE COYLE- WITH SHADES OF BRESLIN AND HIAASEN

I had not read any books by  George V. Higgins who wrote over 30 wonderful works of fiction including the Jerry Kennedy Series, A City On A Hill, The Sins of the Fathers and The Agent.  Higgins died on 1999 and left behind a treasure  of novels and THE FRIENDS OF EDDIE COYLE sets itself apart as a “game changer.”  THE FRIENDS OF EDDIE COYLE is considered by some reviewers as one of the greatest crime novels ever written!

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Set in Boston in the 1960s, the book is 80 percent dialogue bringing together a cast of second and third-rate mobsters, informers and undercover cops with the  irony that Eddie Coyle in fact has  no friends and neither does anyone else the Boston underworld.

I draw a comparison  to Carl Hiaasen’s Lucky You in that there is a certain similarity between the helplessness of Eddie and the bumbling lottery ticket thieves in Hiaasen’s novel. The book also connects with Jimmy Breslin’s The God Rat, the true story about the informer in the famous New York City  bad cop trial in the Gotti and Genovese era.  By the way, I recommend both of these references as additional great reads. Of course Breslin and Hiaasen each have long lists of additional wonderfully worthy books.

THE FRIENDS OF EDDIE COYLE is a photograph in brilliantly written evocative dialogue within the Boston  criminal underworld, reflecting the mentality of the players and engaging the reader in the inevitable outcome.

If you enjoy this genre dig more deeply into the writing of Georg V. Higgins. The book was also made into a highly acclaimed movie starring Robert Mitchum in 1973.