Jun 01, 1993 | ISBN 9780679746317
“A legendary figure. . . . Mitchell’s reportage is so vivid, so real, that it comes out like fiction of the highest order.” —Chicago Sun-Times“A poetry of the actual, a song of the streets that casts a wide net and fearslessly embraces everything human. . . . This is reporting transformed into literature, news that stays news. . . . His work is so rich and generous and funny that it ought to stay in print forever.” —San Francisco Examiner“Mitchell’s darkly comic articles are models of big-city journalism. . . . His accounts are like what Joyce might have written had he gone into journalism.” —Newsweek
Introduction by David Remnick
Author’s Note
McSORLEY’S WONDERFUL SALOON
I
The Old House at Home
Mazie
Hit on the Head with a Cow
Professor Sea Gull
A Spism and a Spasm
Lady Olga
Evening with a Gifted Child6
A Sporting Man
The Cave Dwellers
King of the Gypsies
The Gypsy Women
The Deaf-Mutes Club
Santa Claus Smith
The Don’t-Swear Man
Obituary of a Gin Mill
Houdini’s Picnic
The Mohawks in High Steel
All You Can Hold for Five Bucks
A Mess of Clams
The Same as Monkey Glands
II
Goodbye, Shirley Temple
On the Wagon
The Kind Old Blonde
I Couldn’t Dope It Out
III
The Downfall of Fascism in Black Ankle County
I Blame It All on Mamma
Uncle Dockery and the Independent Bull
OLD MR. FLOOD
Old Mr. Flood
The Black Clams
Mr. Flood’s Party
THE BOTTOM OF THE HARBOR
Up in the Old Hotel
The Bottom of the Harbor
The Rats on the Waterfront
Mr. Hunter’s Grave
Dragger Captain
The Rivermen
JOE GOULD’S SECRET
