The Amboy Dukes

by Irving Shulman

Libro usado en buenas condiciones, por su antiguedad podria contener señales normales de uso

Genres: Fiction, Novels

288 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1946

Reviews

[East Bay J · Rating 2 out of 5]

As the cover states, The Amboy Dukes is "Irving Shulman's great novel of teen-age crime." Shulman's writing style is pretty good, better than the pulp style one would expect from this book but not far removed. The story itself is the typical young hoodlum gets his just desserts in the end sort of thing. My enjoyment was limited by the fact that I could find no sympathy for any of the characters with the exception of Alice Abbot and Stan Andrews. Perhaps that means a job well done for Shulman, depending on his intent.

My interest in this book stems from the fact that The Amboy Dukes was Ted Nugent's band in the 60's. A little research online reveals that The Amboy Dukes may or may not have been a real New York gang. What's interesting about them in this book is that these young toughs wear suits and hats, which stands to reason given that this book was written in the 40's.

At one point, one of the detectives makes a comment about how the kids keep getting worse, which I think is interesting. For about two hundred years, that's the same thing they've been saying about youth gangs in America. We know there were gangs in the 1800's and surely they existed before then. I guess that statement rings false to me. It's like saying crime's gone up when, really, it's the population that has increased while crime stays more or less the same, proportionately.

Not a bad read but not exactly an inspiring read, either.

[Lemar · Rating 3 out of 5]

My Dad gave me this book when I was a teenager, his way of cluing me in on his teenage years without having to actually talk about it! I found it successful in what I felt it was trying to do which was in the nature of an expose, this is what is happening, the kids you are riding on the bus with? this is what they are doing. Beyond that the book succeeded also in getting the reader to identify with some of the characters and how difficult but not impossible it was for them to choose different lives.

[Preetam Chatterjee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Shulman elucidates the elements of gang life through each of his characters, and he portrays these unverified adolescent eccentrics as being as much the victims of their environment and of society on the whole as they are of heartless families and unresponsive social institutions.

To portray the gang members realistically, Shulman peppers their speech profoundly with vulgarities.

They use rudimentary terminology in referring to relations with women.

Their appearance and attitude are confrontational, but the author also includes incidents in which individual adolescent gang members suffer persecution from the police as well as from school officials, with little hope of remedy.

The lives of teenagers are presented in a concerned manner, with an attempt at coarse reality, and the author offers a strong indictment of the conditions that lead these boys to crime and brutality.

Despite his compassion with members of the Dukes, the author graphically portrays the toll of their desertion by established society, and the following formation of their own gang society, on both the boys and those with whom they come into contact.

Robberies, fighting, muggings, and other crimes pervade the novel.

In one episode, the gang members pay a girl to have sex with all of them, then forcibly try to take their money back from her.

The novel ends with no solutions to the problems it exposes.

There are no happy endings for members of the Amboy Dukes.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the book which provided the name to Ted Nugent's very underrated band from the late 60s and early 70s. Written in 1947, and set in 1942 Brooklyn, the novel follows Frank Abbott, a 14-year-old juvenile delinquent who is a member of the Dukes, the gang whose headquarters are on Amboy Street.

Shulman doesn't pull punches - these kids are nasty individuals. There is a lot of violence, horrible treatment of girls (though Frank himself really does have a good relationship with the girlfriend he meets a few chapters in), con jobs, terrible treatment of school teachers (culminating in a murder which was apparently based on a real-life incident), and a child rape. There are lots of circumstances which lead the boys towards the life they choose, but there are no easy answers given in the novel.

It reminds me of movies like Dead End and the much later Blackboard Jungle. The issues of juvenile delinquency were brought up fairly often from the late 30s to the late 50s. Shulman isn't a master prose stylist, but he does a good job of getting into the heads of his characters, and of weaving a bunch of incidents into a coherent novel. I was a little sad to discover the copy I had was "specially revised and edited for Avon Books," but, heck an actual 1951 8th printing of the paperback was worth the $5 I paid at an antiques mall a few months back.

[Veronica · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this novel and Shulman's writing. I liked his descriptions of Brownsville (NYC) to the Mannequin displays of Fifth Avenue. A good book that I could not put down and followed me throughout the day (stowed in my tote). And Frank--I find myself still lingering on Frank--can’t let him go just yet.

[Rosa · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have no use for hopeless books.

[Bob]

Actually, this is not a review but a request. Does anybody know which paperbacks are NOT the altered versions of the original novel? I've been wanting to read it, can't find it in any library. Would buy a used paperback, but want to read the original. A used first edition hardcover costs over $100.00. If anyone has a paperback edition that is unedited to recommenced would be happy to learn. Thanks. Bob

[Donald]

Read this in 1958 when I was 16.