Work and Other Sins: Life in New York City and Thereabouts

Rating:
Summary: A reporter who takes risks and writes with heart
Review: Charlie Leduff writes for the New York Times, but his stories have none of the stuffy, grey tone that the paper is known for. He writes with humor, passion and sympathy for his subjects, who are working stiffs, wanderers and those down on their luck. He uncovers people and places that even the native New Yorker isn't aware of, such as the group of Indians that travels from their village in Canada every Sunday night to spend the week doing union steelwork in Manhattan. He goes wherever the stories are, even if the story is at the top of a skyscraper where the light bulbs need changing. Leduff writes with the artistry of the best non-fiction writers. He knows how real people talk and what real work is. This book is perfect for those who want to peek behind New York's tourist veneer and those who appreciate careful reporting and powerful writing.

Rating:
Summary: a brilliant writer
Review: I have followed this writer for years in NY. He is one that was sought out by many- each article he wrote- especially the "Bending Elbows" column. I still get excited when I see his byline. What a great job he does! In NY, LA, anywhere... I look forward to more from this utterly talented and important writer of our time.

Rating:
Summary: Portraits From the Edge
Review: In his introduction to this collection of essays, this Pulitzer Price-winning reporter lists the "fantastic nobodies" hanging from his family tree: "a pair of heavy-drinking lighthouse keepers, a sleepy morphine addict, a grave robber, a rumrunner, a streetwalker, a numbers maker, a dean of a sham college and a police informant." Mr. LeDuff has sought out similar characters here, most but not all of them nobodies and most but not all of them from New York-- a used-car salesman, a florist, a model for Viagra ads, gravediggers, a Sinatra imitator, workers at Ground Zero, the last civilian light house keeper in the country, midgets, bar owners, a "glittering personality of the Harlem Renaissance" who is murdered in her apartment, a runaway, a retiring doorman. a seventy-three year old still employed as a lifeguard et al. Although many of these people are down and out, few are whiners. They are mildly heroic in that they are able to put their feet on the floor each morning and go to a life-sentence job, if they have one. Some of them are homeless. A few of them have their 15 minutes of glory, an alcoholic bum who catches a child thrown by her mother from a burning building, for instance. Mr. LeDuff's prose is sparse in keeping with his subject matter; he is the master of maximum discription with a minimum of words. John Byrnes who caught the baby is "just back from an extended alcoholiday." Someone in a beer hall drinks beer "greedily, like a nursing kitten." Another character is described as "a conscientious objector to the nine-to-five work world."

Most of the essays here are two to three pages long so you get the essence of the character quickly. This probably works better if you read the essays in the newspaper rather than going through many of these stories at one sitting since if you aren't careful, you may become suicidal reading of person after person living on the edge.

On the other hand, my favorite sections of this fine book are the extended write-ups of the slaughterhouse workers at the Smithfield Packing Company plant in Lumberton, North Carolina and Mr. LeDuff's moving account of the death of Dave Fontana from Squad 1 in Park Slope, Brooklyn on September 11, 2001. There are facts about the slaughterhouse that are mind-boggling. the body and mind numbing repetitive jobs day after day, (you hear people say, they don't kill pigs in the plant, they kill people) the tremendous turnover of personnel, (five thousand quit and five thousand are hired each year) the racial tension in the plant, the racial hierarchy with the best jobs going to white workers, then to the Indians, Mexicans and black workers. Mr. LeDuff writes here about some of the things that happened to people who survived September 11. As he says so well, "the story of death has been well documented in these, the first few weeks following September 1. But there is also the matter of living." He thus takes the reader into how Mr. Fontana's wife and son and his fellow firefighters after September 11 cope as they attempt to pick up the pieces of their shattered lives. There are the difficulties of giving eulogies over empty coffins, the governmental red tape and saddest of all, the little boy who just wants his father to return.

These no-nonsense essays should remind us that we are all in this together.

Rating:
Summary: Portraits From the Edge
Review: In his introduction to this collection of essays, this Pulitzer Price-winning reporter lists the "fantastic nobodies" hanging from his family tree: "a pair of heavy-drinking lighthouse keepers, a sleepy morphine addict, a grave robber, a rumrunner, a streetwalker, a numbers maker, a dean of a sham college and a police informant." Mr. LeDuff has sought out similar characters here, most but not all of them nobodies and most but not all of them from New York-- a used-car salesman, a florist, a model for Viagra ads, gravediggers, a Sinatra imitator, workers at Ground Zero, the last civilian light house keeper in the country, midgets, bar owners, a "glittering personality of the Harlem Renaissance" who is murdered in her apartment, a runaway, a retiring doorman. a seventy-three year old still employed as a lifeguard et al. Although many of these people are down and out, few are whiners. They are mildly heroic in that they are able to put their feet on the floor each morning and go to a life-sentence job, if they have one. Some of them are homeless. A few of them have their 15 minutes of glory, an alcoholic bum who catches a child thrown by her mother from a burning building, for instance. Mr. LeDuff's prose is sparse in keeping with his subject matter; he is the master of maximum discription with a minimum of words. John Byrnes who caught the baby is "just back from an extended alcoholiday." Someone in a beer hall drinks beer "greedily, like a nursing kitten." Another character is described as "a conscientious objector to the nine-to-five work world."

Most of the essays here are two to three pages long so you get the essence of the character quickly. This probably works better if you read the essays in the newspaper rather than going through many of these stories at one sitting since if you aren't careful, you may become suicidal reading of person after person living on the edge.

On the other hand, my favorite sections of this fine book are the extended write-ups of the slaughterhouse workers at the Smithfield Packing Company plant in Lumberton, North Carolina and Mr. LeDuff's moving account of the death of Dave Fontana from Squad 1 in Park Slope, Brooklyn on September 11, 2001. There are facts about the slaughterhouse that are mind-boggling. the body and mind numbing repetitive jobs day after day, (you hear people say, they don't kill pigs in the plant, they kill people) the tremendous turnover of personnel, (five thousand quit and five thousand are hired each year) the racial tension in the plant, the racial hierarchy with the best jobs going to white workers, then to the Indians, Mexicans and black workers. Mr. LeDuff writes here about some of the things that happened to people who survived September 11. As he says so well, "the story of death has been well documented in these, the first few weeks following September 1. But there is also the matter of living." He thus takes the reader into how Mr. Fontana's wife and son and his fellow firefighters after September 11 cope as they attempt to pick up the pieces of their shattered lives. There are the difficulties of giving eulogies over empty coffins, the governmental red tape and saddest of all, the little boy who just wants his father to return.

These no-nonsense essays should remind us that we are all in this together.

Rating:
Summary: Powerful and Mesmerizing Stories
Review: This collection of powerful and mesmerizing stories from Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter Charlie LeDuff offers up a paean to the real New York and the seamy, gritty underside that is often hidden from view to the casual observer. "New York is a glamorous city, constituted mostly of nobodies," says LeDuff in the book's introduction, and it is these nobodies that he plucks from obscurity and brings to life in these nervy, punchy vignettes.

Partially drawn from his former column in the New York Times, the pieces collected in WORK AND OTHER SINS provide compelling and contemplative portraits of the laborers, dreamers, hustlers and immigrants from the city's uncelebrated ranks of working stiffs. There's the man who replaces light bulbs at the top of the Empire State Building, the last licensed trapper within city limits, the harbor policemen charged with the grisly task of removing dead bodies from the river, the black Santa Claus at Rockefeller Center, and the last civilian lighthouse keeper on Coney Island.

In his deeply personal style, LeDuff lays bare the hopes, fears and frustrations of these unsung heroes, offering us an intimate chronicle of lives lived quietly in the shadows. The city around them serves as no mere background player, but instead comes alive as a living, breathing organism in its own right. The author evocatively captures the sights and sounds of the urban landscape, authentically rendering the smoky dive bars, dingy street corners and cramped single room occupancy hotels where dreams are born and extinguished, and the city's dramas are played out.

The abbreviated length of the pieces in the collection makes them perfect for reading in short sittings, and LeDuff writes with a keen sense of perceptivity and depth that belies their brevity. In his spare, clipped prose devoid of any false sentiment, he gives us an unvarnished account of real people living real lives, and the result is profoundly moving and compassionate.

While many of the stories and characters seem to nostalgically hark back to a vanishing era, there are also some painfully modern snapshots of a post 9/11 New York, including stories about the rescue efforts and debris removal at Ground Zero and a profile of Squad One, the Brooklyn firehouse that suffered devastating losses during the attack. But even in recording these dark times, LeDuff succeeds in finding moments of beautiful humanity, often in the simplest acts and statements of his subjects.

In addition to the sheer voyeuristic reading pleasure these essays offer up, they also serve as astute works of social and cultural anthropology, much in the vein of Studs Terkel and Luc Sante. While at their core they are a celebration of the individual, taken collectively the stories form a cohesive oral history of the myriad voices residing on the fringe that deserve to be seen and heard.

LeDuff's incomparable take on the city vividly brings to life the culture of the streets and the poetry of the people, leaving us with a newfound admiration and respect for the resiliency and spirit of the common man.

--- Reviewed by Joni Rendon