Damon Runyon: A Life

Damon Runyon was the journalist and short story writer who, more than anyone else, personified the razzle-dazzle of Broadway and the Roaring 1920s. As a reporter he found early success covering not only Broadway but also the Mexican Revolution, World War I, the Lindbergh kidnapping and the worlds of professional boxing and baseball. Runyon did not only record the American myth; he helped to create it with his short stories of small-time gamblers and gangsters, drawn directly from the underworld characters he was familiar with. After his death, a collection of his stories became the musical "Guys and Dolls". Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jimmy Breslin helps to recapture the 1920s era in this book that includes the characters of Pancho Villa, William Randolph Hearst, Al Capone, Jimmy Walker and Jack Dempsey.