Made in America: or The Tragedy of Billy Castle and Unexpected Absolution of Dean Willis

Billy Castle is twenty-five years old, commuting from Queens to Manhattan to serve drinks to uptowners, keep his alcoholic mother afloat, and outrun the reputation of a father whose name still echoes through certain corners of the city—whose ostensibly random murder in a liquor store by an unknown shooter when Billy was a child left behind nothing but a name that carries weight in all the places Billy has spent his whole life avoiding.

On his first week working at the Palace, one of Manhatta...