Book Review: Sutton by J.R. Moehringer

 

Goodreads Summary: Willie Sutton was born in the Irish slums of Brooklyn in 1901, and he came of age at a time when banks were out of control. Sutton saw only one way out and only one way to win the girl of his dreams. So began the career of America's most successful bank robber. During three decades, Sutton became so good at breaking into banks, the FBI put him on its first-ever Most Wanted List. But the public rooted for the criminal who never fired a shot, and when Sutton was finally caught for good, crowds at the jail chanted his name.
In J.R. Moehringer's retelling, it was more than need or rage that drove Sutton. It was his first love. And when he finally walked free--a surprise pardon on Christmas Eve, 1969--he immediately set out to find her.

Genre Listing: Historical Fiction, Crime Fiction, 

Goodreads Challenge: 14/48

2022 Reading Challenge: #54 Read a book by an author using Initials as part of their name (Find the entire challenge here.) 

Book Review:

Hello, readers. I hope everyone is doing well. I wanted to attempt to try and get this blog post out before I lose what little energy I have. So, I'm just going to keep this relatively short and sweet. Some day, I'll get back to the more frequent lengthier posts. I just don't know when that will be.

Anyways, I picked up Sutton not that long ago. I had thought of using it for another category (famous criminal), but I don't think we ended up putting it on the list. That or it's something I thought of for next year's challenge. Either way, I thought it sounded interesting, and I'm glad there was a place for it on the list. 

Sutton by J.R. Moehringer follows famous bank robber Willie Sutton, who was infamous during the Great Depression. I don't really recall hearing much about him in History. Growing up in Indiana, the main famous criminal I learned about was Dillinger. I thought Willie's story was interesting, but it was hard to get into initially. It wasn't so much the story but the way it was written. The formatting is very odd. There are no quotations to designate who said what, so the dialogue all runs together. Willie also talks about himself in the third person a lot. However, once I got used to the writing style, I didn't want to put it down. 

I'm not sure how historically accurate the story is. I did some digging after I finished it and couldn't find much on Bess. So I'm not sure how involved in Willie's life she really was after the first arrest. The crimes, escapes, and some other details of Willie's life told in Sutton seem pretty accurate based on what I was reading on Wikipedia and the FBI's page on him. Part of the fun of reading Historical Fiction is researching after I'm done to see what was true and created for the story. Nerd. I know.

If J.R. Moehringer's description of Willie Sutton is even close to what he really was, I can see why people rooted for him to win. He was very charismatic and seemed to want to do the right thing, but also just wanted to survive. He seemed incredibly intelligent, and I appreciated that he didn't want to hurt anyone. I also liked that he was an avid reader. 

Overall, once I got past my issues with the style, I really enjoyed the book. It depicted Willie's early life, his crimes, and the potential for what happened after he was released from prison. If you like Historical Fiction depicting the Great depression and True Crime, I'd definitely recommend it.