Providing the inspiration and source material for the upcoming HBO series produced by Academy Award-winning director Martin Scorsese and Emmy Award-winning screenwriter Terence Winter, this riveting and wide-reaching history explores the sordid past of Atlantic City-forever a freewheeling town long-dedicated to the fast buck-from the city's heyday as a Prohibition-era mecca of lawlessness to its rebirth as a legitimate casino resort in the modern era. A colourful cast of powerful characters, led by "Commodore" Kuehnle and "Nucky" Johnson, populates this stranger-than-fiction account of corrupt politics and the toxic power structure that grew out of guile, finesse, and extortion. Atlantic City's shadowy past-through its rise, fall, and rebirth-is given new light in this revealing, and often appalling, study of legislative abuse and organized crime.
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[Shortly after sunrise on a cool August morning in 1987, my friend Chris and I walked along the beach in Atlantic City, its Boardwalk and hotel-casinos looming directly on our right](Medford Press, 1 February 2012 (first published July 2002), 320 pages, ebook, borrowed from my library, Popsugar 2018 Reading Challenge, true crime)
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Boardwalk Empire turned out to be a lot better than I thought it was going to be. I decided to read the book because I was determined to read a true crime book that did not feature murder or child abuse. Boardwalk Empire offered something different.
I struggled with the book for the first few chapters. I found the writing quite dull, dry matter-of-fact prose. I was actually considering scrapping the book and picking up something else.
But then, we are introduced to Nucky Johnson and the book found the spark it had been missing until this point. Boardwalk Empire really takes off at this point and I found myself enjoying it.
I know nothing about Atlantic City (except information gleamed from an episode of Sex and the City where the girls took a trip there) so I found the chronicle of Nucky's rise and subsequent downfall and the corruption of the resort fascinating.
Boardwalk Empire is quite sad at times, especially towards the end when the city, once the most popular resort in America, struggles to find its feet after Nucky's imprisonment, the end of Prohibition and the unstoppable march of progress as the city and those who run it seem unable to move beyond gambling.
Atlantic City, once the height of glamour starts to fade. I was quite moved by the descriptions of all the hotels and businesses closing, the once famous boardwalk starting to chip away and the shabby feel to everything. I enjoyed how different the current Atlantic City is to the place it was in Nucky's time. They could be different places altogether.
A word of warning, I decided to read Boardwalk Empire because of the glossy cover showing the cast of the HBO show. The book is nothing like the show, just the source material that sparked someone's imagination.
