Amazon.com Review

Jimmy Breslin's The Story of Eduardo Gutierrez tells the unspeakably sad tale of a young illegal Mexican immigrant who died working at a New York City construction site. The man, who drowned in November 1999 after falling three stories into wet cement, was employed by a builder--"a crook with blueprints" Breslin writes--whose record of building code violations was long and well known, but who stayed in business because of his "untouchable" political status. Breslin weaves Gutierrez's story with one of blatant corruption reaching from Brooklyn's Hasidic community through Rudolph Giuliani's administration and Hillary Clinton's senatorial campaign to her husband's last-minute presidential pardons. Breslin writes with white-hot anger and thorough disgust--he says of New York officials that "many are paid and few are apprehended." At the center is the shy, 22-year-old Gutierrez, whose journey to help his family ended in loneliness, exploitation, fear, and, finally, death. --H. O'Billovitch

From Library Journal

When a building under construction in Brooklyn collapsed on November 23, 1999, Eduardo Gutierrez, a 21-year-old Mexican day laborer working on the third floor, fell face-first into liquid concrete below. Trapped, he suffocated to death. Here, longtime New York newspaper columnist and prolific author Breslin (I Want To Thank My Brain for Remembering Me) gives voice and respect to the powerless like Gutierrez. He compassionately portrays the drudgery and loneliness consuming the lives of hardworking but undocumented immigrants while fearlessly revealing the questionable procedures and corruption that enabled the builders to develop their shoddy structures. At times, however, Breslin's snipes at public figures such as Hillary Clinton and Rudolph Giuliani are only tangentially relevant to the story. And in describing the victim's early life in Mexico, the author quotes dialog despite the improbability of having overheard these conversations. By including this kind of speculation in a journalistic work, Breslin risks compromising the veracity of a story that needed to be told. All the same, Breslin skillfully engages the reader with transitions in time, cleverly turned phrases, and segues into fascinating topics such as Russian immigrants, Hassidic Jews, the Williamsburg Bridge, and the dangers encountered at the Mexico-U.S. border. Recommended for all public libraries. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 10/15/00.] Elaine Machleder, Bronx, NY

The Short Sweet Dream of Eduardo Gutierrez

Similar The Short Sweet Dream of Eduardo Gutierrez