J. R. Moehringer Libri

In the grand tradition of landmark memoirs, this classic American story explores self-invention and escape, highlighting the fierce love between a single mother and her only son. J.R. Moehringer, captivated by the voice of his absent father—a New York City disc jockey—sought understanding of masculinity and identity. His mother was his rock, but he yearned for something more, something he could only hear in The Voice. At eight, when The Voice vanished from the radio, J.R. turned to a local bar, discovering a chorus of new voices. There, he encountered a diverse group of men—cops, poets, bookies, and soldiers—who shared their stories and provided a fatherhood-by-committee. J.R. found mentorship in figures like Uncle Charlie and Colt, who took him to the beach and ballgames, helping him navigate his dual influences: his mother’s strength and the bar’s allure. As he embarked on various life journeys—from a dilapidated grandfather's house to Yale, and from a retail job to a challenging role at the New York Times—the bar remained a seductive sanctuary, offering refuge from failure and heartbreak. This memoir is suspenseful, wrenching, and achingly funny, portraying one boy's struggle to become a man while revealing how men often remain, at heart, lost boys.

Nel 1997, a J.R. Moehringer fu affidato un reportage su Bob Satterfield, un peso massimo che combatté tra il 1945 e il 1957 e di cui non si sapeva nulla. Era scomparso dalla circolazione. Moehringer era in cerca di una buona storia e seguì le tracce di un uomo che viveva per strada e che giurava di essere Bob Satterfield. Si faceva chiamare il «Campione» e affermava di essere Bob, «il miglior knockout di tutti i tempi». Ma era davvero il «Campione»? Moehringer esamina il cuore del suo personaggio e racconta la storia di un uomo che diventa, mentre lo osserva come un entomologo, il suo Moby Dick personale: una persona che gli rivela, dietro la sua misteriosa identità, qualcosa del suo passato, qualcosa che ha a che fare con il coraggio, con lo sport e con il costante desiderio di un uomo che cerca suo padre.

Willie Sutton was born in the Irish slums of Brooklyn, in the first year of the 20th century, and came of age at a time when banks were out of control. Over 30 years, from Prohibition through the Great Depression, from the age of Al Capone until the reign of Murder Inc., police called Sutton one of the most dangerous men in New York.