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Gorn (Mother Jones) presents a solid, unromanticized account of the last year in the short life of famed bank robber John Dillinger. Gorn rejects psychologizing about why Dillinger, the unexceptional if restless grocer's son, born in Indianapolis in 1903, turned to a life of crime, arrested first in 1924 for assaulting an elderly store clerk in a botched robbery. After spending nine years-almost a third of his short life-in jail, Dillinger found a Depression-era America far different from the one he'd left. Less than two months into his parole, Dillinger and the first in a revolving parade of Dillinger gang members robbed the Commercial Bank in Daleville, Ind., making off with $3,500. Between July 1933 and his death just one year later, Dillinger robbed more than 10 banks, killed at least five people (all lawmen) and stole over $300,000, all the while evading capture by local law enforcement and later the FBI. Gorn, who teaches at Brown University, relies on newspaper accounts and government documents (and, thankfully, no reconstructed dialogue) to plot the movements of a criminal who, 75 years after his death, still reverberates in the American consciousness. 30 b&w photos. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.Is this a good time for another Dillinger book? The author thinks so, and readers will too by the end of the book. Gorn (history & American studies, Brown Univ.; The Manly Art) has produced an excellent account-a fast-paced romp that's hard to put down-of the short life and times of the outlaw John Dillinger. Covering not just Dillinger's final year, which was full of bank robberies, jailbreaks, and covert visits home, the author paints a picture of the 1930s America that Dillinger experienced. Mostly throughout the Midwest, Dillinger managed to elude authorities-even breaking out of jail by brandishing a wooden gun. The federal agency that became the FBI made his capture their top priority. With economic parallels to today, it is not hard to understand why the public hero-worshipped Dillinger. He was seen as a kind of Robin Hood-he robbed the banks that had lost the life savings of so many. With Johnny Depp playing Dillinger in a summer 2009 movie, this should prove a popular book. Recommended for general readers and crime aficionados; history buffs will appreciate the detailed notes.
—Karen Sandlin Silverman
Chronology Preface
1. He Would Try Hard to be a Man
2. The Farmer Turns Gangster
3. John Dillinger, Houdini of the Outlaws
4. "Pulling That Off was Worth Ten Years of My Life"
5. Dillinger Land
6. "You Can't Get Away With It"
Epilogue: Dillinger's Ghost Notes Index
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Overview
In an era that witnessed the rise of celebrity outlaws like Baby Face Nelson, Pretty Boy Floyd, and Bonnie and Clyde, John Dillinger was the most famous and flamboyant of them all. Reports on the man and his misdeeds--spiced with accounts of his swashbuckling bravado and cool daring--provided an America worn down by the Great Depression with a salacious mix of sex and violence that proved irresistible.In Dillinger's Wild Ride, Elliott J. Gorn provides a riveting account of the year between 1933 and 1934, when the Dillinger gang pulled over a dozen bank jobs, and stole hundreds of thousands of dollars. A dozen men--police, FBI agents, gangsters, and civilians--lost their lives in the ...