Rothstein: The Life, Times and Murder of the Criminal
Genius who Fixed the 1919 World Series reveals not merely
the story of 20th century crime's seminal figure, a polished,
millionaire, gambler manipulating the system, buying and selling
cops and politicians, smuggling booze and drugs, fixing fights and
ballgames, but also of his tortured family relationships.
Consider the personalities involved:
- Arnold Rothstein: The crime boss driven by greed and ambition,
haunted by an inability to connect emotionally with his family.
- The Wife: Carolyn Green Rothstein: Arnold's wife. A former
showgirl driven to despair by her husband's neglect, by his infidelities,
by their sexual disfunction, by living a gambler's wife's life of fear and
suspicion.
- The Father: Abraham Rothstein: A devout first-generation
Orthodox Jew. He wants his sons to grow up in the tradition. Arnold
wants no part of tradition or faith. He wants money (he steals from
him to finance his gambling)--and a practicing Catholic as a wife.
Abraham Rothstein sits shiva for his spiritually dead son.
- The Mother: Esther Rothschild Rothstein: She traumatizes five-year
old Arnold by leaving him home when she and his older brother visit
her family in San Francisco. When she lays at death's door, her
husband refuses to let Arnold pray for her recovery.
- The Psychologist: Dr. James B. Watson: Father of Behavioral
Psychology, disgraced John Hopkins professor, and chosen by
Arnold Rothstein in 1928 to patch up his wounded marriage.
- The Older Brother: Bertram "Harry" Rothstein: His father's perfect
son. Honest. Studious. Reliable. Devout. Everything Arnold is not.
Arnold hates and resents him.
- The Younger Brother: Jacob "Jack" Rothstein: A social climber,
ashamed of his brother's crimes, who on marriage changes his name
to "Rothstone" and breaks his brother's heart.
- The Brother-in-Law: Henry Lustig: The pushcart peddler, who with
Arnold's help, becomes a Manhattan restaurant tycoon. He tries to
cheat The Great Brain. He gets caught.
- The First Mistress: Bobbie Winthrop: Arnold's first mistress. When
Bobbie commits suicide, a grieving Arnold's begs permission of wife
Carolyn to attend Bobbie's funeral, attends--and then goes to the
track.
- The Last Mistress: Inez Norton: The blond Southern WASP actress
and model who sees Arnold as her ticket to the good life in Jazz Age
Manhattan.
- The Orphan: Red Ritter: The New York street urchin who Arnold
wanted to adopt, but whose background proved too sordid even for
Arnold Rothstein.
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