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This title in other formats:

Five-Finger Discount: A Crooked Family History

by Helene Stapinski

Five-Finger Discount: A Crooked Family History Cover

ISBN13: 9780375758706
ISBN10: 0375758704
Condition: Standard
All Product Details

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Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

With deadpan humor and obvious affection, Five-Finger Discount recounts the story of an unforgettable New Jersey family of swindlers, bookies, embezzlers, and mobster-wannabes. In the memoir Mary Karr calls “a page-turner,” Helene Stapinski ingeniously weaves the checkered history of her hometown of Jersey City—a place known for its political corruption and industrial blight—with the tales that have swirled around her relatives for decades. Navigating a childhood of toxic waste and tough love, Stapinski tells an extraordinary tale at once heartbreaking and hysterically funny.

Review:

“[Five-Finger Discount] will steal your heart.”
People

Review:

“By turns hilarious and alarming, uproarious and depressing, [stapinski’s] book reads on the surface like something by Damon Runyon and Elmore Leonard, with a dark undertow of real-life pain and disillusion.”
Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

Review:

“It’s a brilliant book, a darling book. It is the blessedly modest chronicle of a magical consciousness that seems to have been born pulling diamonds out of the muck, hearing angels’ voices in the fiercest thunder....I adored every word of this wondrous book. Get it. Read it.”
Michael Pakenham, Baltimore Sun

Review:

“What [Frank] McCourt did for Limerick, Ireland, Helene Stapinski does for Jersey City.”
Newark Sunday Star-Ledger

Review:

“Hugely entertaining.”
London Sunday Times

Synopsis:

With deadpan humor and obvious affection, Helene Stapinski recounts the story of her growing up in a family "as thoroughly corrupt as the Hudson County political machine that whirs behind the scenes" ("The Village Voice").

About the Author

Helene Stapinski began her career at her hometown newspaper, The Jersey Journal, and since then has written for The New York Times, New York magazine, and People, among other publications. She received her B.A. in journalism from New York University in 1987 and her M.F.A. from Columbia in 1995. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and son.

Product Details

ISBN:
9780375758706
Subtitle:
A Crooked Family History
Author:
Stapinski, Helene
Publisher:
Random House Trade
Subject:
Women
Subject:
Specific Groups - Criminals
Subject:
Criminals
Subject:
Family/Interpersonal Memoir
Subject:
New jersey
Subject:
Personal Memoirs
Subject:
Criminals & Outlaws
Publication Date:
March 2002
Binding:
Paperback
Language:
English
Pages:
272
Dimensions:
8.00x5.22x.61 in. .45 lbs.

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