Five-Finger Discount: A Crooked Family History

Five-Finger Discount: A Crooked Family History

Now a PBS documentary, thisÂ astonishing memoir of growing up in rough-and-tumble Jersey City â€œwill steal your heartâ€ (People)

With deadpan humor and obvious affection, Five-Finger Discount recounts the story of an unforgettable New Jersey family of swindlers, bookies, embezzlers, and mobster-wannabes. In the memoir Mary Karr calls â€œa page-turner,â€ Helene Stapinski ingeniously weaves the checkered history of her hometown of Jersey Cityâ€”a place known for its political corruption and industrial blightâ€”with the tales that have swirled around her relatives for decades. Navigating a childhood of toxic waste and tough love, Stapinski tells an extraordinary tale at once heartbreaking and hysterically funny.

Praise forÂ Five-Finger Discount

â€œBy turns hilarious and alarming, [Helene Stapinskiâ€™s] book reads on the surface like something by Damon Runyon and Elmore Leonard, with a dark undertow of real-life pain and disillusion.â€â€”Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

â€œItâ€™s a brilliant book, a darling book. It is the blessedly modest chronicle of a magical consciousness that seems to have been born pulling diamonds out of the muck, hearing angelsâ€™ voices in the fiercest thunder. . . . I adored every word of this wondrous book. Get it. Read it.â€â€”Michael Pakenham, The Baltimore Sun

â€œIn the tradition of . . . Rita Mae Brown and Amy Tan, Ms. Stapinski is an exciting writer, unabashedly candid, and at the same time unashamedly self-contained. Five-Finger Discount is a must-read.â€â€”Victoria Gotti, The New York Observer

â€œWhat [Frank] McCourt did for Limerick, Ireland, Helene Stapinski does for Jersey City.â€â€”The Star-Ledger

â€œHugely entertaining.â€â€”The Sunday Times (London)
Country USA
Brand Random House Trade Paperbacks
Manufacturer Random House Trade Paperbacks
Binding Paperback
ItemPartNumber 0375758704_used
Color Tan
ReleaseDate 2002-03-12
UnitCount 1
EANs 9780375758706

Country	USA
Brand	Random House Trade Paperbacks
Manufacturer	Random House Trade Paperbacks
Binding	Paperback
ItemPartNumber	0375758704_used
Color	Tan
ReleaseDate	2002-03-12
UnitCount	1
EANs	9780375758706

Five-Finger Discount: A Crooked Family History

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