J.R. Moehringer Pens First Novel on Bank Robber
United Press International
Mar 31, 2011
New York publishing house Hyperion says it plans to publish a first novel by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist-memoirist J.R. Moehringer.
Set for release in Fall 2012, the as-yet-untitled book is a work of historical fiction about infamous U.S. bank robber Willie Sutton. Sutton robbed 100 banks between 1925 and 1950, made off with $2 million and broke out of three "escape-proof" prisons, all without firing a single shot, the publishers noted.
Sutton was caught after Arnold Schuster, a young crime buff, spotted him in 1952 on a Brooklyn subway and alerted police. Three weeks after Sutton's arrest, Schuster was killed outside his house by a gunman who was never identified.
"I've been fascinated by Sutton since I was a boy," Moehringer said in a statement. "My grandfather used to talk with some amusement, and some awe, about Willie 'The Actor,' about his disguises, about his commitment to non-violence. He was the Gandhi of gangsters. He was also a lover, a reader, a thinker, and a social critic ahead of his time: he detested banks. He thought bankers were the root cause of everything wrong with society. No wonder he became such a folk hero."
"We are thrilled to continue our publishing relationship with J.R., who is a superb writer," Ellen Archer, president and publisher of Hyperion, said. "Readers will love this suspenseful, funny, sad, and bawdy tale, enlivened by J.R.'s exhaustive and fascinating reportage -- this is a story so wonderfully strange, it could only be true."
Moehringer won a Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing in 2000, while working as a national correspondent with the Los Angeles Times. His memoir, "The Tender Bar," was published in 2005.
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Copyright 2011 by United Press International
