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46-670: A film based on the novel was released in 1991 to very mixed reviews. Billy Behan is an impoverished fifteen-year-old living in The Bronx with his mother. One afternoon, Billy is present when infamous Jewish mobster Dutch Schultz arrives to inspect a shipment of illegal beer . When Billy demonstrates his skill at juggling, an amused Schultz calls him a "capable boy" and tips him. Billy later finds and infiltrates Schultz's offices without being seen, resulting in Schultz's accountant and trusted advisor Otto Berman agreeing to take him into

92-595: A Dagenham -born minister and professor of zoology at Durham University , and Sheila Graham Wood, née Lillia, a schoolteacher from Scotland. Wood was raised in Durham in an evangelical wing of the Church of England , an environment he describes as austere and serious. He was educated at Durham Chorister School (on a music scholarship) and at Eton College (with the support of a bursary based on his parents' "demonstrated financial need"; his older brother attended Eton as

138-473: A "vocabulary charged with overkill". Billy Bathgate (film) Billy Bathgate is a 1991 American biographical gangster film directed by Robert Benton , starring Loren Dean as the title character and Dustin Hoffman as real-life gangster Dutch Schultz . The film co-stars Nicole Kidman , Steven Hill , Steve Buscemi and Bruce Willis . Although Billy is a fictional character, at least four of

184-635: A King's Scholar). He read English Literature at Jesus College, Cambridge , where in 1988 he graduated with a First. After Cambridge, Wood "holed up in London in a vile house in Herne Hill and started trying to make it as a reviewer". His career began reviewing books for The Guardian . In 1990, he won Young Journalist of the Year at the British Press Awards . From 1991 to 1995, Wood was

230-656: A Visiting Lecturer and then as Professor of the Practice of Literary Criticism. In 2010–11, he was the Weidenfeld Visiting Professor of European Comparative Literature in St Anne's College, Oxford . Like the critic Harold Bloom , Wood advocates an aesthetic approach to literature, rather than more ideologically driven trends that are popular in contemporary academic literary criticism . In an interview with The Harvard Crimson Wood explains that

276-721: A certain anxiety of influence. I don't want to talk about him. He was a recipient of the 2010/2011 Berlin Prize Fellowship from the American Academy in Berlin . In 1992, Wood married Claire Messud , an American novelist. They reside in Cambridge , Massachusetts , and have a daughter, Livia, and a son, Lucian. Wood has written the following: "I have made a home in the United States, but it

322-480: A few lines earlier there had emerged the stronger hint of a proposal ... Positive individuality; the cultivation of "something new" (anything, as long as it is something?); a connection to the Great Tradition; and... youth! One of the editors, Keith Gessen, could be found on the last page of the magazine writing: "It is time to say what you mean." Indeed, but what do you mean? The Editors had unwittingly proved

368-556: A radio broadcast, Doctorow described the novel's genesis in a picture, whose origin he could no longer remember, of men in tuxedos and black tie on a tugboat. Trying to interpret that image prompted him to ponder "the culture of gangsterism" and its mythic appeal. The novel leads off with Billy's description of Bo Weinberg's execution (before backtracking to account for how he got there): a performance of which Doctorow explained that "the very first sentence I wrote in Billy Bathgate

414-542: A rich analysis of home and homelessness; McGuinness is half-Irish and half-Belgian) quotes Simenon , who was asked why he didn't change his nationality, 'the way successful francophone Belgians often did'. Simenon replied: 'There was no reason for me to be born Belgian, so there's no reason for me to stop being Belgian.' I wanted to say something similar, less wittily, to the immigration officer: precisely because I don't need to become an American citizen, to take citizenship would seem flippant; leave its benefits for those who need

460-529: A socialite named Drew Preston, kidnapped at gunpoint. Billy follows them out to a riverboat, where he witnesses Schultz having Weinberg thrown into the East River with his feet encased in cement . Afterwards, Schultz has Billy take Drew back to her apartment to gather her things. Billy discovers Drew is married , and that her wealthy husband, Harvey, is gay . Seeing Schultz as simply the latest of her sexual conquests, Drew agrees to become his gun moll and

506-472: A wholly negative attack on negativity": There I was, waiting for the sweets of positivity, for the proposals and manifestos and counterarguments, only to find the merest dusting of kiddies' sugar: "And what can we do, with thirty-six weeks left on our discount subscription [to the New Republic ]? Forget about it. We're young yet: so we'll go and be among the young." Perhaps this was ironically intended;

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552-409: Is able to get in contact with her real husband, wealthy Harvey, who manages to take Drew home, whisking her out of harm's way on a private plane before Schultz's men can make their move. Despite being acquitted by a sympathetic jury, Dutch is soon indicted again. After running into difficulties paying for his legal defense, he decides to have state prosecutor Thomas E. Dewey assassinated. This request

598-401: Is almost too familiar to be visible. We hardly remark of good prose that it favors the telling and brilliant detail; that it privileges a high degree of visual noticing; that it maintains an unsentimental composure and knows how to withdraw, like a good valet, from superfluous commentary; that it judges good and bad neutrally; that it seeks out the truth, even at the cost of repelling us; and that

644-474: Is an English literary critic , essayist and novelist. Wood was The Guardian ' s chief literary critic between 1992 and 1995. He was a senior editor at The New Republic between 1995 and 2007. As of 2014 , he is Professor of the Practice of Literary Criticism at Harvard University and a staff writer at The New Yorker . James Wood was born in Durham , England, to Dennis William Wood (born 1928),

690-479: Is at the heart of the novel. Through paying close attention to the gangster's death-bed ramblings, Billy finds the clue to locate Schultz's hidden treasure. And as he himself describes, such attention also leads to his equally valuable discovery of the verbal means to preserve as a lasting memory the lesson of what is otherwise a purely destructive force. "Whereas Schultz's rage appropriates everything to his need to destroy, Billy's words bear permanent witness to whatever

736-575: Is denied by the mob's governing authority, the Commission , out of fear that killing Dewey will bring too much heat upon the Mafia. Schultz sends Billy to bribe a member of the Commission, but the bribe is rejected. When Billy returns with the bad news, Schultz angrily blames him for not doing enough, and Billy is fired by Schultz's right-hand man, Otto Berman, who, seemingly foreseeing doom ahead for

782-517: Is not quite Home. For instance, I have no desire to become an American citizen. Recently, when I arrived at Boston, the immigration officer commented on the length of time I've held a Green Card . 'A Green Card is usually considered a path to citizenship,' he said, a sentiment both irritatingly reproving and movingly patriotic. I mumbled something about how he was perfectly correct, and left it at that. [...] The poet and novelist Patrick McGuinness , in his forthcoming book Other People's Countries (itself

828-504: Is taken with him when he settles in Onondaga as part of his plan to avoid conviction for tax evasion . Billy poses as Schulz's ward with Drew as his governess , while Schultz works to win over the locals by paying off debts, making charitable gifts, and even converting to Roman Catholicism at the town church. One afternoon, Drew goes for a country hike with Billy and asks him to tell her the truth about Bo's death. She then scrambles down

874-416: Is the first sentence that appears in the book, and it actually delivered the character Billy to me. He was sort of built into the diction and the syntax, and even the rhythm of the sentence gave me the way he breathed." With this as a start, the novel develops into what is largely a first person monologue , less narration than an act of lyrical remembrance. In fact, the act of speaking and its interpretation

920-410: Is threatened with impermanence." While most reviewers responded to Doctorow's verbal dexterity and reinterpretation of historical facts, they found the ending unconvincingly sentimental. And for one interpreter, at least, the entire plot was grounded in sentimentality, "pure and defiant daydream" based on pulp fiction, its deficiency disguised in a heightened prose that scarcely stops to draw breath and

966-478: The Chicago Sun-Times gave it 2 stars out of 4, and wrote, "Billy Bathgate cost a lot of money to make, they say, but it's not there on the screen." The movie debuted at number 4, and underperformed against its $ 48 million budget. Nicole Kidman was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress . James Wood (critic) James Douglas Graham Wood (born 1 November 1965)

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1012-576: The London Review of Books where he is a member of its editorial board. He and his wife, the novelist Claire Messud , are on the editorial board of the literary magazine The Common , based at Amherst College . Wood began teaching literature in a class he co-taught with the late novelist Saul Bellow at Boston University . Wood also taught at Kenyon College in Ohio , and since September 2003 has taught half time at Harvard University , first as

1058-547: The "novel exists to be affecting... to shake us profoundly. When we're rigorous about feeling, we're honoring that." The reader, then, should approach the text as a writer, "which is [about] making aesthetic judgments." Wood coined the term hysterical realism , which he uses to denote the contemporary conception of the "big, ambitious novel" that pursues vitality "at all costs." Hysterical realism describes novels that are characterised by chronic length, manic characters, frenzied action, and frequent digressions on topics secondary to

1104-455: The 1930s include Loon Lake and World's Fair ; the latter also shares poetical evocations of the Bronx in which the author himself grew up. Doctorow has described his novel as "a young man's sentimental education in the tribal life of gangsters". A reviewer saw in it "Doctorow’s shapeliest piece of work: a richly detailed report of a 15-year-old boy's journey from childhood to adulthood". In

1150-416: The Bronx in the 1935. One day, he catches the attention of wealthy Jewish mobster Dutch Schultz . Changing his last name to Bathgate after a local street, Billy goes to work for Schultz's organization, serving mostly as a gofer for Schultz. Billy is present when Schultz personally commits two brutal murders: his trusted lieutenant, Bo Weinberg , who Schultz believes betrayed him after learning that Weinberg

1196-625: The author's fingerprints on all this are paradoxically, traceable but not visible. You can find some of this in Defoe or Austen or Balzac , but not all of it until Flaubert. In reviewing one of his works, Adam Begley of the Financial Times wrote that Wood "is the best literary critic of his generation". Martin Amis described Wood as "a marvellous critic, one of the few remaining." Fellow book reviewer and journalist Christopher Hitchens

1242-420: The book How Fiction Works (particularly in the final chapter) that the most important literary style is realism . He states: When I talk about free indirect style I am really talking about point of view, and when I talk about point of view I am really talking about the perception of detail, and when I talk about detail I'm really talking about character, and when I talk about character I am really talking about

1288-620: The chief literary critic of The Guardian , and in 1994 he served as a judge for the Booker Prize for fiction. In 1995, he became a senior editor at The New Republic in the United States. In 2007 Wood left his role at The New Republic to become a staff writer at The New Yorker . Wood's reviews and essays have appeared frequently in The New York Times , The New Yorker , the New York Review of Books , and

1334-452: The company of other critics who wrote with such seriousness, at such length, in such old-fashioned terms, he would have been less burdened with the essentially parodic character of his enterprise. Wood wrote a reply in the Fall 2005 issue, explaining his conception of the "autonomous novel" and pointing out the editors' hypocrisy in criticizing negative book reviews in an essay that was "itself

1380-471: The contents of Schultz's safe, Billy is able to attend college and fight in World War II . After being discharged, he returns to New York and quietly digs up Schultz's fortune, planning to use it to build a new life for himself and his family. Billy Bathgate is the eighth in a series of what critic James Wood has called "intricate historical brocades". Earlier novels by Doctorow that were also set in

1426-460: The country to safety. Billy, questioned as to why he bought the gifts, lies and says that he bought them on impulse without admitting his relationship with Drew. Schultz is acquitted, but his enemy, federal prosecutor Thomas E. Dewey , issues an arrest order for the mobster if he returns to New York. Schultz flees to Newark and sets up an office in the back room of a chophouse . Against Berman's advice that going after Dewey would not sit well with

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1472-465: The delirious Schultz's stream of consciousness monologue as he is dying, using clues from this to locate the exact spot where Dutch has buried all of his money. The Mafia tries to intimidate Billy into giving up the money, but he convinces them that only Schultz's lawyer, Dixie Davis , knows where it is. Billy then returns to the Bronx and moves back in with his mother. A year later, Drew, having given birth to Billy's child, gives him sole custody. Using

1518-424: The gang. To avoid the stigma of having an Irish boy work for a Jewish crime boss, Billy changes his last name to "Bathgate" after a local street. When Berman tasks Billy to spy on the gangsters who go to Schultz's nightclub, Billy witnesses Bo Weinberg , Schultz's lieutenant, meeting with a pair of men affiliated with the rival Italian mafia . Believing that Weinberg is a traitor, Schultz has him and his girlfriend,

1564-470: The gravamen of their own critique: that it is easier to criticize than to propose. In response, the n+1 editors devoted a large portion of the journal's subsequent issue to a roundtable on the state of contemporary literature and criticism. Harold Bloom, in a 2008 interview with Vice magazine , stated: Oh, don't even mention [Wood]. He doesn't exist. He just does not exist at all. [...] There are period pieces in criticism as there are period pieces in

1610-534: The novel and in poetry. The wind blows and they will go away. [...] A publisher wanted to send me [Wood's] book and I said, "Please don't." [...] I told them, "Please don't bother to send it." I didn't want to have to throw it out. There's nothing to the man. He also has—and I haven't ever read him on me—but I'm told he wrote a vicious review of me in The New Republic , which I never look at anyway, in which he clearly evidenced, as one of my old friends put it,

1656-421: The other characters in the film are real people. The screenplay was adapted by British writer Tom Stoppard from E.L. Doctorow 's 1989 novel of the same name . Doctorow distanced himself from the film for the extensive deviations from the book. It received negative reviews and was a box-office bomb , grossing a mere $ 15.5 million against its $ 48 million budget. Billy Behan is a poor Irish American teenager from

1702-406: The other gangs, Schultz decides to assassinate his enemy and orders Billy to case his apartment block. Just as Billy returns, Mafia gunmen storm the restaurant; Schultz, Berman, and their bodyguards are killed. Billy is small enough to escape out of a bathroom window and returns in time for the dying Berman to give Billy the code to Schultz's personal safe. Billy sneaks into the hospital and notes down

1748-529: The out-of-control Schultz, lets him keep the bribe money as a gift. As Billy leaves, he is ambushed and beaten by gangsters working for Commission head Lucky Luciano and is then forced to watch as Luciano's men storm Dutch's safe-haven restaurant where he is dining. Dutch, Berman, and his two henchmen are swiftly gunned down. Billy is taken to meet Luciano, who tells him that he knows where Billy's family lives if he ever speaks of what happened to Dutch, before letting him go, along with his envelope of cash. The film

1794-420: The real, which is at the bottom of my inquiries. Wood additionally attests to the significance of Flaubert in developing the form of the novel: Novelists should thank Flaubert the way poets thank spring; it all begins again with him. There really is a time before Flaubert and a time after him. Flaubert decisively established what most readers and writers think of as modern realist narration, and his influence

1840-717: The side of a waterfall and swims in the pool underneath, where Billy comforts her. Eventually, the two start an affair. On the day of the trial, Berman instructs Billy to take Drew to the horse races at Saratoga Springs . Billy quickly realizes that he's been set up, and that Schultz has arranged for his best hitmen to kill Drew as he fears she will implicate him in Bo's murder. Billy uses the allowance Berman provided him with to have flowers and expensive gifts delivered to Drew, making it impossible for her to be harmed without attracting attention. The ruse buys enough time for Harvey, whom Billy contacted beforehand, to pick up Drew and take her out of

1886-489: The story. In response to an essay Wood wrote on the subject, author Zadie Smith described hysterical realism as a: painfully accurate term for the sort of overblown, manic prose to be found in novels like my own White Teeth ... [yet] any collective term for a supposed literary movement is always too large a net, catching significant dolphins among so much cannable tuna. You cannot place first-time novelists with literary giants, New York hipsters with Kilburn losers, and some of

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1932-614: The writers who got caught up with me are undeserving of the criticism. Wood coined the term commercial realism , which he identifies with the author Graham Greene , and, in particular, with his book The Heart of the Matter . He clarified it as attention to the minutiae of daily life, taking in mind elements of the everyday that are important owing to their supposed lack of importance. He believes it to be an effective style of writing because it captures reality by depicting banal features as well as interesting ones. Wood emphasises throughout

1978-458: Was fond of James Wood's work, in one case giving his students a copy of Wood's review of the John Updike novel Terrorist , citing it as far better than his own. In the 2004 issue of n+1 , the editors criticised both Wood and The New Republic , writing: Poor James Wood! Now here was a talent—but an odd one, with a narrow, aesthetician's interests and idiosyncratic tastes... In

2024-470: Was previously Bo's mistress), as he temporarily moves into the local community. He successfully charms the residents, presenting himself as good-natured and easygoing while doing many charitable acts, even faking conversion to Catholicism. While Dutch is attending his trial, Billy is assigned to watch Drew. His loyalties to Schultz are tested as he falls in love with the flirtatious Drew. Realizing that Dutch intends to have Drew murdered for cheating on him, Billy

2070-516: Was secretly meeting with rival bosses, is dumped in the water wearing cement shoes ; and his top enforcer, "Big" Julie Martin, who is shot dead by Dutch for stealing $ 50,000 from the organization's accounts, and defiantly stating that he's "entitled" to it. Despite this, Billy comes to see Schultz as a father figure, and the mob as his chance to make it big. Facing criminal charges of tax evasion in an upstate New York court, Schultz brings his entourage, including Billy and his mistress Drew Preston (who

2116-520: Was shot in Hamlet , North Carolina, and Saratoga Springs , New York. On Rotten Tomatoes , the film has an approval rating of 36%, based on 25 reviews. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C+" on a scale of A+ to F. Variety wrote, "This refined, intelligent drama about thugs appeals considerably to the head but has little impact in the gut, which is not exactly how it should be with gangster films." Roger Ebert of

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