Reminiscing after his mother's death, Benny Kramer remembers the chaos and hardships of his youth, indelibly marked by a brief turn as a bootleggerFor most of his life, Benny Kramer's mother was an inescapable presence in his life. But on the day of her death, her body disappears on its way from hospital to morgue. While scouring New York in search of her body, Benny remembers the first adventure his mother sent him on, fifty years before.At the height of Prohibition, little Benny's mother gives him a simple task: Deliver eighteen bottles of bootlegged hooch to a wedding. Along the way, the would-be rumrunner encounters sinister slumlords, a sadistic rabbi, and enough slapstick obstacles to give the Marx Brothers fits. Reliving each moment as he searches for his mother, Benny comes to understand that this is just another day in the life of a boy desperate to find his mother's love.This ebook features a foreword by Alistair Cooke.

The stirring novel of a boy's poignant coming of age during the 1920s on Manhattan's Lower East Side When Benny Kramer's father came to the United States, he was hungry, broke, and ignorant. Handed a banana and told it was "American food," he scarfed it down, peel and all. By the time he died, he was no richer, but much wiser, and everything he learned he imparted to his son. Growing up on New York's Lower East Side between the wars, Benny's life was just as chaotic as his neighborhood.How many young boys have seen a man decapitated by a horse? How many know blacksmiths who got tangled up in a multiple homicide? How many win an elocution contest, only to find out it was rigged by the mob? For Benny, these are everyday events, and he remembers them with the biting wit that made Jerome Weidman one of the most beloved novelists of his day.This ebook features a foreword by Alistair Cooke.

Jerome Weidman's enduring classic novel about life in New York's cutthroat garment districtJust south of Times Square, more than six thousand manufacturers of dresses are crammed into the few blocks that make up Manhattan's garment district. Their factories are cramped, noisy, and incredibly profitable—and Harry Bogen is going to take them for all they're worth. A classic conniver, he knows that it's easier, and a hell of a lot more fun, to turn a buck by lying than by telling the truth. First he convinces the shipping clerks—the pack animals of the garment industry—to go on strike. With the dress manufacturers brought to their knees, Harry will be there to pick them up again. His conscience might be conflicted, if he had one in the first place. A bracing comic sensation when first published, I Can Get It for You Wholesale remains a timeless masterpiece—its hero still a scoundrel, and his charm as irresistible as ever.

Benny Kramer returns, this time turning to one of his oldest friends to save the life of Kramer's sonThough his trip from New York to Philadelphia is for business, Benny Kramer has also planned a rendezvous—not with a mistress, but with one of the city's finest doctors. Kramer plans to enlist him in a noble purpose: keeping his son out of Vietnam.The doctor won't provide this service to just anyone, but he and Benny have a mutual friend in the incomparable Sebastian Roon. Benny and Seb have been friends since the Depression, when they shared countless adventures across New York's Lower East Side. Now Benny's counting on that friendship to ensure the same life of endless possibilities for his son.This ebook features a foreword by Alistair Cooke.

Out of the game and itching for action, Harry schemes up a way back to the top in this engrossing sequel to I Can Get It for You WholesaleWhen Harry Bogen became king of the garment district, he blossomed into a natural-born tyrant: imperious, cruel, and quick with a lie. But after he built his empire, he blew it up, leaving his partners in jail and securing the whole of the fortune for himself. It takes only three months for Harry to find that retirement does not suit him. To get back in the action, he'll have to spin a lie that would be his biggest yet. The scheme starts with an order for one thousand dresses, bought at cut-rate price from a vendor who can't afford not to sell. From there, Harry raises the stakes, juggling deals and spinning stories as fast as he possibly can. Will he secure himself fortune everlasting, or will this little Napoleon meet his Waterloo? Win or lose, Harry Bogen will keep scrapping every inch of the way.