Wild Women Authors feature author Diana Rubino and Bootleg Broadway, a story of Prohibition: debauchery, a little romance, along with booze, music, sex, and murder.
Good morning, Diana. Tell us how Bootleg Broadway
came to be born. After [my earlier
novel] From Here to 14th Street, was set in 1894, I needed to set this book
a generation later, which happened to be the 1930s—with Prohibition and the
Great Depression as the backdrop. And since the 18th Amendment,
establishing Prohibition, was ratified 105 years ago this week, the timing was
perfect.
This is the first book I ever wrote where I created
the characters first, with nothing to do yet. The plot developed the way it did
because of who they are. My goal was to get the protagonist Billy McGlory into
one mess after another. This era couldn’t have been more suited to Billy’s
adventures, a few of which he barely escaped with his life.
Tell us a bit about Bootleg Broadway. In this sequel to From Here to 14TH Street,
Vita and Tom McGlory and their three children are struggling to make ends meet.
It's 1932. Prohibition rages, the Depression ravages, and Billy McGlory comes
of age whether he wants to or not. Musical, and adventurous, Billy dreams of
having his own ritzy supper club and big band. On the eve of Billy’s marriage
to the pregnant Prudence, the shifty "businessman" Rosario Ingovito
offers him all that and more. Fame, fortune, his own Broadway musical…it's all
his for the taking, despite Pru's opposition to Rosie's ventures.
Meanwhile, Pru's artistic career gains momentum and
their child is born. Can anything go wrong for Billy? Only when he gets in way
over his head does he stop to wonder how his business partner really makes his
millions, but by then it's far too late…
Tell us some nicknames from a few real life characters: As in From Here to 14th Street, a
lot of characters have nicknames like Piggy Balls and Dirty Neck Bruiso. I sat
around the table with my surviving aunts and uncles who were then in their 80s
and 90s, and they rattled off these nicknames from ‘the old days’ in Jersey
City like they made them up yesterday. That was a standard Italian neighborhood
custom, everybody had a nickname. Some were more descriptive than others. But
you didn’t just ‘get’ a nickname. You had to earn it.
Some more nicknames from the old neighborhood included:
Bruno Chicken Body; Butta Jeans; Charlie Burp; Chick a
la zoo; Dirty Dicky; Floody; Frankie Butch Butch; Gravel Gertie; Hoo Hoo; Jazzy
Lou; Jiji Balls; Jinji; Johnny in for the pot; Juu-jo; Sloppy; and Vigi-Leak
This is my favorite passage from Bootleg Broadway [even
though is made my aunt cringe]:
Pru had kept close-mouthed all day about what she was
giving Billy for his birthday. He badgered and hounded her, but she wouldn’t
give in.
As Ma began divvying up the rum cake, the doorbell
rang, and Da came back with a long box. “This thing’s heavy. What’s in here,
Pru? Billy’s tombstone?”
Billy cut the ribbon with the cake knife and slid the
lid off. Wads of tissue paper filled the box. As he removed the last layer of
covering and revealed what was inside, they all gasped—a sculpture of a naked
man, in all his masculine glory—and fully aroused. He had one hand on his hip
and one foot upon a pedestal on which was inscribed in bold letters, “BILLY.”
“Oh, crap.” His face turned red hot.
Here’s an excerpt:
Heading south on Madison Avenue, I heard the siren. I glanced into the
rearview mirror and saw the unmistakable Greyhound radiator ornament of the
Lincoln behind me. Cop car. All the gangsters drove Lincolns, which had a top
speed of 80, so the cops had to get Lincolns to keep up with them. I tried to
get the hell out of his way—he must've been going to a robbery or a diner or
something. I pulled over, and he pulled up next to me. Oh, shit. It was me he
was after.
I rolled down the window and asked sweetly, "Yes, sir, what can I
do for you, sir?"
"License and registration please."
"Uh—what's wrong, officer? Did I commit a traffic violation?"
As the son of the ex-Chief of Police, I should have been real
comfortable around cops, but to tell the truth, they scared the hell out of me.
The cops my father knew weren't the crooked ones. They were the straight-assed
ones, just like him, who fought Tammany and made a career out of busting
crooks. They didn't have a price, like the rest of them. Hardnosed bastards,
some were frustrated politicians and not smart enough to get into law school,
so they enforced the laws from behind their badges. Hell, I was all for law and
order, but these guys sometimes took it too far.
"Your back license plate is missing."
Relief drained me. "Oh, drat. It must've got stolen. You know this
city—just crawlin' with thieves."
"License and registration, please," he repeated, in what
passed for a more menacing cop voice. Now he assumed his cop stance, pudgy
fists on meaty hips, waiting while I dug through the glove compartment, tossing
aside all the crumpled up sheet music and junk crammed in there. Oh, that's
where my emergency pack of cigarettes was, and that old box of prophylactics!
But damned if I couldn't find the registration.
"Uh—I can't find it, but it's my car, honest. I mean, it was a
gift to me, but it's been paid for, it's not stolen or anything. I can probably
find it in my penthouse. You wanna follow me there? It's only two blocks
aw—"
"Step out of the car, please."
Uh-oh. I felt my bowels burning. I had two briefcases bulging with two
shitloads of money in the back seat.
He poked his head into the car. "What's in the briefcases?"
"Uh—I dunno. I'm doing an errand for somebody."
"Yeah, I'll bet you dunno. Step aside, please."
"Hey, you got a search warrant?" I demanded.
But demanding a search warrant from a New York City cop was like
demanding a shot of Scotch from Satan in the middle of Hell.
I didn't want to look. I turned my head and flattened my palms on the
roof of the car, like I was being searched. I heard the clicks as he sprang the
latches and his not-so-surprised "mm-hmmm" as he checked out the
contents.
"Who you doing this errand for, sonny boy?"
What was with the "sonny boy"? He wasn't much older than me.
I knew he just wanted to put me down. Screw that. I've been called a lot worse
by much better cops than him. He obviously didn't know who I was. "Uh—I'd
better get a lawyer or something."
"You'd better come with me."
"Look, uh—you wanna just take a few bills outta there and forget
it?” I asked, real generously. “I mean, uh—we're all in this mess together, ya
know—"
"Bribing an officer of the law is a very serious offense, sonny
boy. You'll have to come with me. Park your car there, please."
"Here? But there's a hydrant here. I'll get a ticket."
Here are other books about Prohibition your readers might enjoy:
The Stork Club -
Ralph Blumenthal
Once Upon a Time in NY - Herbert Mitgang
Incredible NY: High Life & Low Life - Lloyd Morris and
The Night Club Era - Stanley Walker
Bootleg Broadway can be purchased at:
Amazon: getBook.at/NewYorkSagaBookTwo
To learn more about Diana Rubino and the books she creates,
go to:
