The Short Sweet Dream of Eduardo Gutierrez - Softcover

Breslin, Jimmy

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1400046823 ISBN 13: 9781400046829

Publisher: Three Rivers Press, 2003

Synopsis

The Short Sweet Dream of Eduardo Gutiérrez is a towering achievement by one of America’s most respected journalists. A work of conscience that travels from San Matías Cuatchatyotla, a small, dusty town in central Mexico, to the cold and wet streets of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, this searing exposé chronicles the life and tragic death of an undocumented worker, along with broader issues of municipal corruption and America’s deadly and controversial border policy.

About this title

Review:

Jimmy Breslin's The Story of Eduardo Gutierrez tells the unspeakably sad tale of a young illegal Mexican immigrant who died working at a New York City construction site. The man, who drowned in November 1999 after falling three stories into wet cement, was employed by a builder--"a crook with blueprints" Breslin writes--whose record of building code violations was long and well known, but who stayed in business because of his "untouchable" political status. Breslin weaves Gutierrez's story with one of blatant corruption reaching from Brooklyn's Hasidic community through Rudolph Giuliani's administration and Hillary Clinton's senatorial campaign to her husband's last-minute presidential pardons. Breslin writes with white-hot anger and thorough disgust--he says of New York officials that "many are paid and few are apprehended." At the center is the shy, 22-year-old Gutierrez, whose journey to help his family ended in loneliness, exploitation, fear, and, finally, death. --H. O'Billovitch

From the Back Cover:

“Entertaining and swift . . . a must-read.” —San Francisco Chronicle

“Breslin is the street-smart voice of old New York.”—Washington Post

“Riveting. . . . [Breslin is] a masterful muckraker . . . in the tradition of Theodore Dreiser and Upton Sinclair.” —Book magazine

“Breslin shows again that his instincts are good. . . . [He] has written an important book.”—The New York Times Book Review

“A short, bitter masterpiece.”—Playboy

“Breslin’s research is thorough, his writing seasoned and heartfelt—at times nothing short of poetic.” —Publishers Weekly

“Jimmy Breslin has . . . conjured up a great book. The Short Sweet Dream of Eduardo Gutiérrez reads as if it were written in a cold fury and it lingers in the mind with the moral satisfaction of a promise kept.” —Salon.com

“[Breslin] has used his pen to give voice to the forgotten....With a heart full of anger and compassion, Breslin makes the reader care about Gutiérrez and others like him whose American dreams so often turn into nightmares.”—Boston Globe

About this edition

• Publisher: Three Rivers Press
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 1400046823
• ISBN 13: 9781400046829
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224