{"product_id":"five-finger-discount-a-crooked-family-history-paperback","title":"Five-Finger Discount: A Crooked Family History - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eNow a PBS documentary, this astonishing memoir of growing up in rough-and-tumble Jersey City \"will steal your heart\" (\u003ci\u003ePeople\u003c\/i\u003e)\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e With deadpan humor and obvious affection, \u003ci\u003eFive-Finger Discount\u003c\/i\u003e recounts the story of an unforgettable New Jersey family of swindlers, bookies, embezzlers, and mobster-wannabes. In the memoir Mary Karr calls \"a page-turner,\" Helene Stapinski ingeniously weaves the checkered history of her hometown of Jersey City--a place known for its political corruption and industrial blight--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. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cb\u003ePraise for \u003ci\u003eFive-Finger Discount\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \"By turns hilarious and alarming, [Helene Stapinski's] book reads on the surface like something by Damon Runyon and Elmore Leonard, with a dark undertow of real-life pain and disillusion.\"\u003cb\u003e--Michiko Kakutani, \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \"It'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 angels' voices in the fiercest thunder. . . . I adored every word of this wondrous book. Get it. Read it.\"\u003cb\u003e--Michael Pakenham, \u003ci\u003eThe Baltimore Sun\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \"In 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. \u003ci\u003eFive-Finger Discount\u003c\/i\u003e is a must-read.\"\u003cb\u003e--Victoria Gotti, \u003ci\u003eThe New York Observer\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \"What [Frank] McCourt did for Limerick, Ireland, Helene Stapinski does for Jersey City.\"\u003cb\u003e--\u003ci\u003eThe Star-Ledger\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \"Hugely entertaining.\"\u003cb\u003e--\u003ci\u003eThe Sunday Times\u003c\/i\u003e (London)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ch3\u003eFront Jacket\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eWith 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 \"a page-turner,\" Helene Stapinski ingeniously weaves the checkered history of her hometown of Jersey City--a place known for its political corruption and industrial blight--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.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51292153118943,"sku":"9780375758706","price":22.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0813\/8958\/4607\/files\/vC0kGZLGNn9780375758706.webp?v=1788033133","url":"https:\/\/blackandbarhe.com\/products\/five-finger-discount-a-crooked-family-history-paperback","provider":"Black \u0026 Barhe Bookstore","version":"1.0","type":"link"}