Five-Finger Discount by Helene Stapinski

Five-Finger Discount by Helene Stapinski

Now a PBS documentary, this astonishing memoir of growing up in rough-and-tumble Jersey City will steal your heart (People)

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.

Praise for Five-Finger Discount

By turns hilarious and alarming, Helene 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

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, The Baltimore Sun

In the tradition of . . . Rita Mae Brown and Amy Tan, Ms. Stapinski is an exciting writer, unabashedly candid, and at the same time unashamedly self-contained. Five-Finger Discount is a must-read.--Victoria Gotti, The New York Observer

What Frank] McCourt did for Limerick, Ireland, Helene Stapinski does for Jersey City.--The Star-Ledger

Hugely entertaining.--The Sunday Times (London)

Stapinski, Helene: -

Helene Stapinski is the author of Five-Finger Discount: A Crooked Family History, which recounts her family's criminal history, and Baby Plays Around: A Love Affair, with Music, which chronicles her years playing drums in a rock band in Manhattan. She has written extensively for the New York Times as well as for New York magazine, Salon, Travel & Leisure, and dozens of other publications and essay collections. On the documentary based on Five-Finger Discount, she has worked as a producer and writer. Stapinski has been a radio newscaster in Alaska; has appeared on National Public Radio; was a featured performer with The Moth; has lectured at her alma mater, Columbia University; and has taught at Fordham University. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two children.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780375758706
ISBN 10	0375758704
Title	Five-Finger Discount
Author	Helene Stapinski
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Random House USA Inc
Year published	2002-03-12
Number of pages	272
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.