The Bookmaker: A Memoir of Money, Luck, and Family from the Utopian Outskirts of New York City

By Michael J. Agovino

Marking the debut of a gifted new writer, The Bookmaker teems with humanity, empathy, humor, and insight.

At the heart of Michael J. Agovino's powerful, layered memoir is his family's struggle for success in 1970s, '80s, and '90s New York City--and his father's gambling, which brought them to exhilarating highs and crushing lows. He vividly brings to life the Bronx, a place of texture and nuance, of resignation but also of triumph.

The son of a buttoned-up union man who moonlighted as a gentleman bookmaker and gambler, Agovino grew up in the Bronx's Co-op City, the largest and most ambitious state-sponsored housing development in U.S. history. When it opened, it landed on the front page of The New York Times and in Time magazine, which described it as "relentlessly ugly."

Agovino's Italian American father was determined not to let his modest income and lack of a college education define him, and was dogged in his pursuit of the finer things in life. When the point spreads were on his side, he brought his family to places he only dreamed about in his favorite books and films: the Uffizi, the Tate, the Rijksmuseum; St. Peter's, Chartres, Teotihuac n. With bad luck came shouting matches, unpaid bills, and eviction notices.

The Bookmaker is both a bold, loving portrait of a family and their metropolis and an intimate look into some of the most turbulent decades of New York City. In elegant and soaring prose, it transcends the personal to illuminate the ways in which class distinctions shaped America in the last half of the twentieth century.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0061151394
• ISBN13: 9780061151392
• Release Date: August 2008
• Publisher: Harper
• Length: 368 Pages
• Weight: 0.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Great Story about Co-Op City!

I've driven past Co-Op City on I-95. I always wondered what it was like in there. It seems like a mystery. When I saw the cover of the book, I recognized those big, depressing buildings and wanted to read it. The author of the book does a very good job of bringing his neighborhood to life. He doesn't live there now ( I don't think) but grew up there and lived there for a long time. It's not about how he had a horrible childhood. It sounded like he had a good childhood and played a lot of sports with the neighborhood kids. I always thought it was a place for poor people but now I see it is much more than that. The writer Agovino makes it a very three-dimensional place. His father liked it but his mother hated it. Not all bad, not all good like Robert Moses and politicians expected it to be. There's a lot of "gray" area. It's a well-written book about this guy and his family. Lots of good stories, and non-sterotypical characters.

Very good ..!! I can see a movie coming out from this book...!

This is a terrific book, a memoir that is as rich as a novel, with great originality in the writing. It's the writer's first book and he has a strong voice. It doesn't have a plot per se, but its chronological approach is equally as absorbing. The Bookmaker of the title is not the writer but the writer's father, who did some sports gambling as a second job. I know nothing about sports or gambling but that didn't hinder the reading experience at all for me. That's a small part of it. It's about a parent striving for more for his son. And as someone who is part Italian (and am bothered by the same persistent stereotypes that define the American experience) I was glad the writer acknowledges those stereotypes in a sly way and then completely upends them. Bravo.

great discovery!

I bought this book after reading a review in the Wall St. Journal, a paper I normally don't read. I picked up a discarded copy in a Starbucks. But the book sounded so good and the reviewer so enthusiastic, I bought it. It didn't hurt that the cover--and inside photos of NYC locations--make it seem like you're holding an art object in your hand. It's a beautiful book, the outside, the inside, the photos, writing and story. I never heard of this author, but he can certainly grab hold of a reader. He tells a story of his gambler father from Harlem who raises his son in the Bronx, in a neighborhood very different from his own--large Utopian housing project on the edge of the city. They have their ups-and-downs, but they always remain close and over the coarse of the book you realize you just read a slow history of New York. It's not a novel but it's now one of my favorite "New York" books, along with "The Wanderers," "Bright Lights Big City," "Bonfire of the Vanities," and "The Bronx is Burning." I'm surprised more people aren't talking about this.

Excellent

Excellent book. Reads like a novel but Agovino is a reporter so you know it's all true. Fascinating look into the life of an interesting character-filled family. If you didn't come over on the Mayflower you'll recognize a lot of your own family in this book. Loved the parts we can all relate to, like seeing people from home on your vacation! ("What are they doing here?!") Couldn't put it down. Wanted to see how it all worked out in the end, but this is real life so... Hope he writes a follow-up.

Interesting and compelling

We attended a reading by Michael Agovino and it was extremely interesting and compelling. Can't wait to read the full book and will post more later.