It's 1930s New York and Billy Bathgate, a fifteen-year-old high-school-dropout, has captured the attention of the infamous gangster Dutch Schultz. The product of an East Bronx upbringing by a dysfunctional Catholic mother and an absent Jewish father, Billy is captivated by the world of money, sex, and high society that the charismatic Schultz has to offer. Yet after being lured into a world of extortion, brutality, and murder, Billy finds he must either adapt to his role in a spiralling criminal enterprise, or remain still and face the consequences.
Written in breath-taking prose and peopled with characters from across the human spectrum, Billy Bathgate is a cornerstone of historical fiction by one of the most important American novelists of the twentieth century.