Review
"Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx is Burning is a terrifically entertaining, knowledgeable book about one of the most tumultuous years in the history of New York--both on and off the ballfield. Read it and weep, read it and laugh, for the incomparable circus that was our greatest city." --Kevin Baker, author of Paradise Alley
"Damon Runyon where are you now? Mahler's rollicking evocation of New York in 1977--the year of Son of Sam, the year of the blackout, the year it refuses to Drop Dead, the year, dammit, the Yankees take the World Series--is full of Runyonesque characterizations, energy, and biting wit. Mahler chooses to portray the city from two alternating perspectives, the bleachers and the political clubhouse, and the result is a stereoscopic image in color of a troubled city in search of itself. With characters like Reggie Jackson and Mario Cuomo, Ed Koch and Billy Martin, George Steinbrenner and Jimmy Breslin, the bases are loaded and Mahler smokes it." --Harold Evans, author of They Made America
"Jonathan Mahler takes us back to one tumultuous year in New York, and through masterful storytelling and rich portraits of the leading characters of the day--Reggie, Billy, Koch, Cuomo, Murdoch, Steinbrenner--reminds us that what defines and ultimately saves a city, in any era, are its outsized citizens. In Mahler's expert hands, they are flawed, fierce, brilliant, bickersome, and as indomitable as the metropolis itself." --Michael Sokolove, author of The Ticket Out: Darryl Strawberry and the Boys of Crenshaw
"A fascinating city, a fascinating team, a fascinating time. This book took me back. Where were you in 1977?" --Tim McCarver
"[Mahler] pulls off an expert historical double play by blending front-page political news and sports-page action. The result recalls the ambient atmosphere of the ethnic neighborhoods of Brooklyn and Queens, the natural argot of the precint houses and of the locker rooms of New York just a few years ago. And it's all done with the knowing acumen and street smarts of an old-fashioned beat reporter . . . An informed picture of a bright city in a dark hour." --Kirkus Reviews
"What a book! What a year! Just when it looked like New York was down for the count--its heart and soul and civic fabric seemingly bankrupt and burned--the city rose, incapable of dropping dead. Jonathan Mahler takes us on a mesmerizing trip down into the dark recesses of racist politics and up into the bright lights of Yankee Stadium, transporting us back to a year that turned out to be not the end but morning at last after the city's longest night." --Robert Sullivan, author of Rats: Observations on the History and Habitat of the City's Most Unwanted Inhabitants
"You begin this book thinking, reasonably, that Bella Abzug, Billy Martin, Son of Sam and Studio 54 can't possibly occupy the same narrative space, but as Jonathan Mahler's story of New York circa 1977 unfolds, the disparate gritty elements start to resonate off one another. The result isn't harmony--the city has never known such a thing--but rather what a great book about New York should be: a story that's oversized, blaring, impossible, and true." --Russell Shorto, author of The Island at the Center of the World
"Jonathan Mahler’s Ladies and Gentlemen, The Bronx is Burning is an energetic synthesis of a year in the life of a great city in manic conflict with itself." --Nicholas Dawidoff, author of The Catcher was A Spy
About the Author
Jonathan Mahler is a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine and has published journalism in The Washington Post, New York, The New Republic, Talk Lingua Franca, and The Wall Street Journal. He lives in Brooklyn.
