Handsome Harry : A Novel

Rating:
Summary: A new voice for a distinctive writer
Review: Ever notice how mug shots these days never capture that special twinkle in a suspect's eye? Just ask Michael Jackson, Nick Nolte and James Brown.

Well, it wasn't always that way. Once upon a time in America, police photos were almost glamorous. In fact, a star-struck small-town sheriff once posed with a beaming John Dillinger as if they were two frat boys at a college reunion. A good-looking criminal was a celebrity.

Now James Carlos Blake tells their story through the eyes of one of the most charming and charismatic -- and least known -- of the Depression-era gangsters: "Handsome" Harry Pierpont.

Blake's eight novel is a brilliant portrait of the real-life Pierpont, Dillinger's bank-robbing partner, and other not-so-famous bandits who almost made bank robbery, gun molls and Tommy guns fashionable. The time, place and people all come alive through Blake.

Told by Pierpont himself on the night before his 1934 execution, the novel has an appealing intimacy. Blake captures the outlaw cant perfectly, from psychopathic narcissism to jailhouse bravado to paranoid remorselessness. In short, the gutsy Blake mimics a true criminal marvelously while telling an alluring story.

Some of the myths are woven into Harry's tale, and some are only made delightfully more mysterious. For example, there's Dillinger's legendary, um, physical endowment -- a story that arises from a famous morgue photo which shows an enormous protuberance under the bandit's death-sheet. Pierpont's story? He claims to be even more gifted than his partner in crime, which is why he was also nicknamed "Pete." Ah, the mythology is safe a while longer.

"Handsome Harry" is not a departure for the seductively violent Blake, but a refinement. It still carries his trademark carnage, redolent sex and dry humor, but it is also a beguiling, hurtling digression into a new voice for Blake. It's not just first-person point-of-view, but it's crawling inside a character who really lived and re-building him from the inside out without disturbing the patina of legend that colors him. And it's all jake.

Rating:
Summary: Good Book, But Be Warned
Review: For a long time friends of mine recommended books by James Carlos Blake, but this is the first book by him that I got around to reading. It was well written, in a straightforward and fast paced style. I was somewhat disturbed by the content of the book. It was not the fact that it contained a great deal of explicit sex and violence, as such, that bothered me (although potential readers should be aware that it does contain quite graphic passages). The narrator of the book is "Handsome Harry" Pierpoint, a member of the John Dillinger bank robbery gang of the Depression era. The book does a very good job of capturing the attitudes and way of thinking and behaving of a violent sociopath who cares for nothing except his own immediate gratification. (One minor flaw: would half-educated high school dropouts really know enough to make jokes about Socrates and Oedipus?) The realistic depiction of the mind of a criminal is what bothered me about the book. Once I started reading it, I went right through it and I enjoyed reading it. But afterwards, it left me with a bad feeling. Was reading the thoughts of an essentially two-bit criminal worth two hours of my life and ten dollars of my money? I don't know. It is this doubt that leads me to give the book four stars instead of five. I hope that the author uses his excellent writing ability on a more worthy subject.

Rating:
Summary: The Dillinger Gang's Top Guy
Review: Harry, a small time crook, met his fate in prison in the person of John Dillinger. From there on, he was in 'high cotton' back in the thirties when robbing banks and killing people who got in their way was commonplace.

They formed a 'gang' who hit places all across the land, Florida, Midwest, Arizona, even Knoxville, TN. They escaped across the Gay Street bridge, which is still standing after being closed for a few years for restructuring. At least, we have some claim to fame when it comes to crime.

The characters in this book are real, and most of the events are documented in old newspapers. The relevant historical information is vague, contradictory, or in error (as is all of the old microfilm from the past). A lot of it was made up to sell papers. No one living today really knows what was said or how these criminals felt inside.

Shakespeare is quoted in his play, Richard III, "conscience is but a word which cowards use ....to keep the strong in awe. Our strong arms are our conscience, swords our law." That is okay in a play written in Shakespeare's time, but certainly not a rule to go by in America of the '30s, '40s, or now. Conscience keeps us from hurting other people intentionally.

You run out of everything when you run out of luck. Well, Handsome Harry's luck ended with a smile, as he is led into the death chamber and strapped into the electric chair. The rest of the gang are already gone to their reward for being who and what they were; people think they know everything about these gangsters because they know some of the facts. These are not human beings worthy of respect. They violated the law, not just once but over and over, thinking they were omnipotent. No one is. His grin was wasted under that hood, as the reporters and warders present for the execution could care less.

These 'intimate confessions' are a figment of one's imagination. I'd say he was scared as a rabbit trapped in a hole. Handsome is as handsome does, I always heard.

Rating:
Summary: Harry Pierpont
Review: Having researched Harry for over 25 years, it is good to see a book come out on him, even if it is a novel. It made him appear more human, which all the history and John Dillinger biographies haven't done so far. A guy who lost out on the lime light due to the Dillinger fame...Pierpont was a clever and rather brilliant criminal in his own rights and if he had eluded the police in Tucson of 1934, he may well have made it to the FBI "hit" list right along with Dillinger. Tempermental and highly complexed...Pierpont had all the makings of a famous criminal mind. So sad that history has left him behind.

Rating:
Summary: A Trip to Hell
Review: I've been reading true crime books about Dillinger for the last quarter century, and I've always thought Pierpont was an interesting cipher, an important component of the Dillinger story who was never well explained by any of the "histories" (the foremost of which is THE DILLINGER DAYS by John Toland). But Blake solves all that with this portrait of a sociopath who wants to rise above the run of humanity by showing he's tougher/more ruthless than anybody. It's very believable, and I was highly impressed with Blake's research, also the skillful way he wove it into an authentic voice and narrative. He answers every question I ever had about Pierpont, for instance, why all the histories use the exact same mug shot as illustration. HANDSOME HARRY mentions that Pierpont always stuck out his tongue, closed his eyes, or made a face in his other photos, to show his contempt for the cops who were taking them; the one in the history books only shows him scowling, which must make it the best of the lot. Blake also asserts that every major incident and character is based on real events and people--and he made me believe it. (The shootout I hadn't heard of was the one between Pierpont and Dillinger and the St. Louis gang they had ripped off, in the parking lot of a Chicago night club; I'd like to know more about that.) I was also amazed at the amount of mayhem the gang managed to perpetrate in just four months. I knew they had done all this, but reading it again made it amazing.

On the other hand, the four-month lifespan of the gang points to why I found the book rather unpleasant. Pierpont sacrificies everything, including his own life, for that four-month spree. He's a man who was born to be electrocuted. In Christian terms, he is not only going to Hell as an unrepentant murderer, he has lived all his adult life in a Hell of his own creation. And he LIKES it! The violent, remorseless protagonist of this book is highly disturbing, which is why I'm giving it four stars rather than five.

At the same time, it's a fast read, and very skillfully written.

Rating:
Summary: A rolicking crime caper!
Review: In 'Handsome Harry', author James Carlos Blake captures the voice of bank robber Harry Pierpont in the same way that J.D. Salinger captured the voice of an angsty teenager in 'The Catcher in the Rye'--- BELIEVABLY & SMOOTHLY. This boldly honest first person narrated novel takes actual events of the great depression years of the 30's and gives a novelistic flair and panache to the way it was running with the John Dillinger gang. Robbing banks and staying one step ahead of the law as we know is a very dangerous profession. This novel puts you right there in the center of the action with hot dames, expensive suits, and bullets screaming from a Tommy gun!

Rating:
Summary: Vintage James Carlos Blake
Review: This author specializes in creating historical fiction that is based upon real life characters, who are historically regarded as outlaws but in their own time would have been viewed by many of the contemporary populace as heroes. Blake's work is always meticulously researched, with the resulting work, while technically fiction, usually mirroring very closely the actual historical events and characters that the book is based upon. This latest work is about Harry Pierpont, who was at the centerpoint of John Dillinger's first gang. His second gang, which featured Baby Face Nelson and Homer Van Meter and who were involved at the Little Bohemia shoot-out in Wisconsin, usually carry the greater attention in historical replay. Blake does a wondrous job in creating the atmosphere of this Depression-era story of a time when many of Pierpont's ilk where seen as crusaders against a corrupt banking and big business industry that had created the Depression and brought ruin to so many. I would have given this book 5 stars, except it didn't quite match up to his two best works, those being "Wildwood Boys" and "Red Grass River", both of which are also strongly recommended. I can't wait for his novels to come out, they are like time machines to grittier times when a sense of moral conviction born out of oppression and the use of a gun made the bad guys believe (and with at least some justification) that they were victims and were really the good guys. Anything this man puts out is superlative and is highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Vintage James Carlos Blake
Review: This author specializes in creating historical fiction that is based upon real life characters, who are historically regarded as outlaws but in their own time would have been viewed by many of the populace as heroes. Blake's work is always meticulously researched, with the resulting work, while technically fiction, usually mirroring very closely the actual historical events and characters that the book is based upon. This latest work is about Harry Pierpont, who was at the centerpoint of John Dillinger's first gang. His second gang, which featured Baby Face Nelson and Homer Van Meter and who were involved at the Little Bohemia shoot-out in Wisconsin, usually carry the greater attention in historical replay. Blake does a wondrous job in creating the atmosphere of this Depression-era story of a time when many of Pierpont's ilk where seen as crusaders against a corrupt banking and big business industry that had created the Depression and brought ruin to so many. I would have given this book 5 stars, except it didn't quite match up to his two best works, those being "Wildwood Boys" and "Red Grass River", both of which are also strongly recommended. I can't wait for his novels to come out, they are like time machines to grittier times when a sense of moral conviction born out of oppression and the use of a gun made the bad guys believe (and with at least some justification) that they were victims and were really the good guys. Anything this man puts out is superlative and is highly recommended.