Brooks on Books: The Bronx is Burning

Or rather, "Ladies and Gentleman, The Bronx is Burning," the full title of Jonathan Mahler's excellent 2005 book detailing 1977 in New York, spotlighting the Yankees, but also covering the Son of Sam murder spree, the blackout, the race for mayor, and the general malaise affecting the city at that time.

Yesterday, I wrote about the ESPN adaptation, but this is the real deal, and apart from the excellent archival footage ESPN dug from the ABC vaults, the original is definitely better here. Here's what I wrote, with minor modifications, two years ago:

The premise of "TBIB" is that 1977 was a really wild year for New Yorkers, and that in fact New York was a pretty crappy place to live in during the 1970s.

Mahler is a reporter who provides plenty of atmosphere in his enthralling account. It's an ambitious attempt to link the Yankees' championship with the urban miseries of New York City.

In fact, it may be a little too ambitious. Mahler goes back and forth between the political and baseball stories as he goes through the year, while inserting sections on events like the blackout and David Berkowitz in their place in the narrative. The result is that while it's a lively story, you do get jumbled a bit, and there are places where you are left wanting more detail. That's not necessarily a fatal flaw--the book covers a lot of ground as it is, and it does whet the appetite for more. As Charlie Brown might say on one of those old CBS specials, "If you'd like to learn more about New York City in the 1970s, consult your local library..."

Really this isn't a pure baseball book, but that Yankee team, as well as all of the late 70s Bronx Zoo-era ones, was fascinating. This was Billy Martin, Reggie's arrival, and...well, that's the focus in the Yankees' part: Reggie and Billy. They do make a great story, and it rightly is the focus, but Mahler's attempt to make their success a metaphor for the rise from the ashes of New York isn't entirely convincing.

The mayor race had the incumbent, Abe Beame; Bella Abzug; Mario Cuomo, and Ed "How am I doin'?" Koch. It's a colorful field, and the race is pretty interesting. Mahler offers numerous behind-the-scenes details and seems to have supplemented his research with insightful new interviews for the book. I learned a lot from the political passages.

The blackout is explained comprehensively, though given a relatively sparse number of pages, and the failure of power, and the looting and riots that accompanied it, sum up the urban blight quite "nicely," if that word can be affixed to such an ugly event.

One gripe: The organization of the book is more or less chronological, in several large, numbered sections with numerous short untitled chapters. This makes it a bit difficult to refer back to info or earlier mentions of events and people. The problem is compounded by--here's a bit of a pet peeve of mine for a nonfiction book like this--no index.

Overall, the book almost reads too quickly, feeling a tad slight despite its ambitious scope. It is really entertaining, though, and tough to set aside. I don't know first-hand what the scene was like in NY in 1977, but I find Mahler does a great job of recreating that atmosphere of tension, fear, and excitement, all in the confines of the Big Apple.

In fact, he does such a good job of conveying what a mess NY was that, as I alluded to, the apparent "phoenix rising" he is going for at the end isn't convincing, and the end is a bit rushed. Some more analysis tying all of this together would have improved this, but as an account of a specific time and place and what happened there, it's vivid and compelling.

It's a must-read for fans of the miniseries.