Description: This is the sprawling biography of Arnold Rothstein, a mythical New Yorker who was the inspiration for Meyer Wolfsheim in "The Great Gatsby" and Nathan Detroit in "Guys and Dolls." Rothstein was also rumored to be the mastermind of the Black Sox scandal, the fixing of the 1919 World Series.
Brief description:
Nick Tosches is the acclaimed author of many books, including biographies of Jerry Lee Lewis, Dean Martin, and Sonny Liston. He writes for numerous periodicals, including Vanity Fair, where he is a contributing editor. He lives in New York City.
Review Quotes:
"Unbelievable. I read everything by Nick Tosches." - Johnny Depp
"Tosches has produced one bruiser of a book . . . riveting," - Library Journal
"Nick Tosches is a powerfully unconventional biographer . . . he has thundered passionately, lyrically, and even biblically, sometimes about characters who may not at first appear likely to solicit such treatment . . . [Tosches] has fun tearing down every previous book on his subject, showing them all to be made up of twice-told tales, if not of whole cloth." - New York Times Book Review
"[Tosches] gets to some sort of (spiritual?) essence of the man and his times." - San Diego Union-Tribune