The Harry Bogen Novels: I Can Get It for You Wholesale and What's in It for Me?
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About this ebook
Set in Manhattan’s garment district, Jerome Weidman’s debut novel, I Can Get It for You Wholesale, was a scathing satire of capitalist greed as personified by the shameless scoundrel Harry Bogen, who “became an archetypal figure in American literature: the abrasive young man who would do anything to get ahead” (The New York Times).
Weidman’s prose was praised by no less than F. Scott Fitzgerald, who called the book “[a] break-through into completely new and fresh literary terrain; a turning point in the American novel,” and Ernest Hemingway, who enthused: “I think [Weidman] can write just a little better than anybody else that’s around.” The book was a sensation and spawned an “equally hard-driving” sequel, What’s in It for Me?, as well as a movie version and a musical starring Elliott Gould as Harry and featuring Barbra Streisand’s Broadway debut (The New York Times).
As relevant today as when they were first published in the 1930s, both novels are now available in a single volume, featuring a foreword by Alistair Cooke.
I Can Get It for You Wholesale: The stage for this savagely comic novel is Manhattan’s cutthroat garment district, where six thousand manufacturers of dresses are crammed into a few blocks. Their factories are cramped, noisy, and incredibly profitable—and Harry Bogen is going to take them for all they’re worth. A classic conniver, he knows that it’s easier, and a hell of a lot more fun, to turn a buck by lying than by telling the truth. First he convinces the shipping clerks—the pack animals of the garment industry—to go on strike. With the dress manufacturers brought to their knees, Harry will be there to pick them up again. His conscience might be conflicted, if he had one in the first place.
“A slick job of writing, as hard-boiled as a twelve-minute egg.” —The New York Times
What’s in It for Me?: In this sharp-witted sequel, Harry Bogen is again up to his old tricks. After Harry built his empire and became king of the garment district, he blew it up, leaving his partners in jail and securing the whole of the fortune for himself. It takes only three months for Harry to find that retirement does not suit him. His latest scheme starts with an order for one thousand dresses, bought at cut-rate price from a vendor who can’t afford not to sell. From there, Harry raises the stakes, juggling deals and spinning stories as fast as he possibly can. Will he secure himself fortune everlasting, or will this Napoleon meet his Waterloo?
Jerome Weidman
Jerome Weidman (1913–1998) was an American novelist and playwright. Born in New York’s Lower East Side, he began selling short fiction at the age of seventeen to magazines such as Story,the American Mercury, and the New Yorker; the latter published twenty-three of his short works between 1936 and 1946. Weidman’s first novel, I Can Get It for You Wholesale (1937), made him a national sensation. A story of greed in Manhattan’s infamous garment district, it was as controversial as it was popular. Weidman went on to write more than twenty novels, including Fourth Street East (1970), Last Respects (1971), and What’s in It for Me? (1938), a sequel to his hit debut novel. In 1959, he co-wrote the musical Fiorello!, about New York’s most famous mayor, which won a Pulitzer Prize and a New York Drama Critics Circle award. Weidman continued publishing fiction until late in his life, and died in New York.
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Titles in the series (4)
I Can Get It for You Wholesale: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Harry Bogen Novels: I Can Get It for You Wholesale and What's in It for Me? Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWhat's in It for Me?: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5What's in It for Me?: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5
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