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The Wicked City: Chicago From Kenna To Capone (Illinois), by Curt Johnson
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The Wicked City is an account of Chicago’s vice, crime, capitalism, and corruption from Pierre the Mole, who sold whiskey to the Indians, through Jonny Torrio and Al Capone, who bootlegged a Great Lake’s worth of booze during the Roaring Twenties. Chicago’s drive for wealth and power in this fifty-year span are evoked through the spirited accounts of the careers of its leading tycoons—such as Charles Yerkes, Marshall Field, George Pullman, and Big Bill Thompson—and its leading gangsters: the Terrible Gennas, Jim Colosino, Dion O’Banion, Diamond Joe Esposito, Johnny Torrio, and Al Capone. The Chicago portrayed here is raw, real, and vital; its raucousness, lawlessness, ebullience, and greed become poetic.
- Sales Rank: #2344312 in Books
- Published on: 1998-03-22
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.00" h x .92" w x 6.00" l, 1.35 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 406 pages
- ISBN13: 9780306808210
- Condition: New
- Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
Amazon.com Review
Chicago has experienced more in the past 100 years than most cities do in 500. To tell this complicated, yet engrossing, story without overlooking important characters or events is nearly impossible--unless you are the authors of The Wicked City. This breezy narrative tells the story of Chicago between 1880 and 1930, including underworld mobsters, the origins of organized crime, and the men who laid down its foundations. An amalgam of amazing characters--from bootleggers of 1880 to influential gangsters like Al Capone, Johnny Torrio, and Roger Touhy--are vividly bought to life, without ever being dramatized or romanticized. But gangsters wielding a Tommy gun weren't the only villains of the day. There were also megalomaniacal tycoons, such as "King Mike" Mcdonald--who was a proponent of the phrase, "There's a sucker born every minute," and who had the clout to manipulate professional athletes to throw their pride aside for the lure of the dirty dollar as witnessed by the shame of the 1919 Chicago "Black" Sox. Delving into the shadier side of Chicago, Johnson and Sautter plausibly separate fact from fiction and escape the trappings of sensationalism often associated with this period. Their book will fascinate anyone who has an interest in American cultural history. --Jeremy Storey
From Publishers Weekly
What could be discounted as another Chicago gangster book, separates itself from the pack by the vivid detail with which it resurrects the flamboyant underworld characters, high-society capitalists and crooked politicians who ran The Windy City from 1880-1931 and established its notorious persona. Insightful parallels are drawn here between corrupt politicians, such as Michael "Hinky Dink" Kenna, gangsters like Al Capone, and great dynasts like Marshall Field and meatpacker Philip Armour, whose credo for success was " . . . buy out or destroy any competitor whose products are better than your own." And while Johnson ( Nobody's Perfect ) and Sautter ( Expresslanes Through the Inevitable City ) sometimes bombard the reader with extraneous details, they make up for it in convincing reenactments of shoot-outs: "Plaster and glass and splinters of paneling went flying, neat rows of bullet holes stitched themselves at waist level into walls." Portrayed here is a city in which politicians assisted bootleggers during prohibition and racketeers determined election results; a city that couldn't even keep its baseball team clean--witness the infamous 1919 White Sox. With cameo appearances by Babe Ruth, Al Jolson, Gloria Swanson and Mickey Mouse, this book has an all-star cast that may be cumbersome, but is never boring. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Fiction writer Johnson (Song for Three Voices, LJ 5/1/85) has created a raucous, sprawling mural of Chicago from 1880 to 1931, with chapters on Theodore Dreiser and jazz contributed by Sautter. Johnson has a good ear for a punch line, and his breezy style keeps the narrative moving. He offers a drama with no heroes; the central characters are Al Capone and his mentor, Johnny Torrio. The rest of the cast are mostly other gangsters, corrupt politicians, and greedy capitalists, with a few artists and athletes. The final chapter contains a diatribe against capitalism and American politics past and present. This polemic is meant to serve as the context for evaluating the characters and careers of Capone and Torrio, but it gives the book an unfortunate tone of cynicism. A marginal purchase, in spite of the enduring popularity of the subject matter.
Wendy Knickerbocker, Rhode Island Coll. Lib., Providence
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Most helpful customer reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful.
An Unsung Nugget
By Bill Emblom
I have read a number of books on Chicago during the time of Al Capone including three of his biographies, but this book is an overlooked gem. I accidentally came across it here at Amazon and decided to give it a try. All the colorful characters are here including those Lords of the Levee (Bathhouse John and Hinky Dink) and a number of gangsters during that time period you may have heard of and others that will likely be new to you. Yes, there are chapters of the McCormicks of Chicago, Jack Dempsey, the boxing champion of the time period, Louis Armstrong, and buffoon mayor, Big Bill Thompson. Some readers may feel they are being told more than they care to know about Chicago prior to and during the Capone era. I did not feel this way. I have often wondered what happened to a number of the lesser lights who were not as well known. The author provides us with this information. Also pointed out is that just saying a gangster was shot a number of times and killed doesn't do justice to the horror of what takes place. In addition to the tears of loved ones there is "no romance in mob warfare, only life's red blood, torn flesh, and death." Many of these mobsters died in their twenties or thirties. Sooner or later, usually sooner, most of them found their way to Mt. Carmel Cemetery. This book rates a solid five stars. I wish it was in hard cover. If you are interested in this time period I would suggest you get a copy and read it. You will not be disappointed.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful.
a narrative of no flow
By A Customer
I'm the sure that the main draw to this book concerns the seedy, gangster underworld of Chicago. I don't know if I have enough patience to get there; the narrative so far relates sound-bite stories of the founders, urban planners, and architects who first erected this city. It's extremely interesting material, but Johnson's flits over it all in barely readable, fragmented prose. Furthermore, as one unfamiliar with the city (especially as it was in the 1800s), his descriptions of the landscape (and the design of the buildings) leaves me still with a black box imagination of what the city looks like. Pictures or illustrations would well suit the understanding of this book, which would lead to the (hopeful point of the story) understanding of the city.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful.
Interesting Look at Chicago's past villians and others
By K.A.Goldberg
This book gives readers a sense of Chicago's past by examining notorious villains and others that inhabited our city during its period of great expansion from 1880-1930. During that time Chicago grew on the strength of industry and immigration from 503,000 persons in 1880 to well over 3 million by 1930. These pages contain vignettes about gangsters like Johnny Torrio and Al Capone (both were originally from New York), crooked yet caring politicians like Bathhouse John Coughlin and Hinky Dink Kenna, and arrogant tycoons like George Pullman and Charles Yerkes. There's also some discussion of good guy artists like Louis Armstrong, Theodore Dreiser, Carl Sandburg, etc., but the book is mostly devoted to the non-angelic. The vignettes are never too long, and always interesting, but the narrative seems a bit unorganized, and it helps if one is acquainted with the city's general history. Still, this is an interesting book.
Our city probably deserves its reputation for corruption, but one wonders why the like sins of other cities are so often ignored. Whatever the reasons, this narrative makes an interesting read.
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