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Stanley N. Alpert

Autor/a de The Birthday Party: A Memoir of Survival

1 obres 178 Membres 12 Ressenyes

Obres de Stanley N. Alpert

Etiquetat

Coneixement comú

Gènere
male
Nacionalitat
USA
Llocs de residència
USA

Membres

Ressenyes

Stanley Alpert, an Assistant US Attorney in New York City, was grabbed on the street on the night before his thirty-eighth birthday by three guys who shoved him into a car at gunpoint and demanded his ATM card and his PIN. Frustrated by the daily withdrawal limits on the card, they kept Stanley captive for more than twenty-four hours while they worked on plans to get more cash out of his accounts. Then, somewhat surprisingly, they let him go.

In this book, Alpert describes his ordeal, with a particular focus on his attempts to remain calm and rational and make the best choices for getting out of the situation alive. To that end, he made an effort to be polite and accommodating towards his captors -- at one point, he had them asking him for legal advice! -- and to gather as many clues as possible to the criminals' identities and the location of the house they were holding him in. There turned out to be quite a lot of those; these were not exactly the most skilled and savvy kidnappers in the history of crime. He also talks about the police investigation afterward and how the experience affected him, and intersperses the story of the kidnapping with various digressions about his experiences growing up in Brooklyn, the details of his career in environmental law, and his opinions on crime and race relations in New York.

Alpert sometimes comes across as a bit of a lech when he's talking about women, which is a bit annoying, but I do have to admire his ability to properly handle a situation that would have undoubtedly turned me into a gibbering wreck. His writing sometimes feels like he's trying a little too hard to mimic the style of a thriller or gangster novel, but it's still an interesting read about an interesting experience, with a few moments that are unexpectedly, darkly funny.
… (més)
½
2 vota
Marcat
bragan | Hi ha 11 ressenyes més | Jan 7, 2014 |
A very interesting memoir about the 26 hours Stan Alpert spent as a kidnapping victim and the investigation and aftermath. He was incredibly fortunate that they did not murder him. Certainly Alpert had substantially better survival skills than I do (and, I suspect, better than most of us). For me, the weakest part of the book was the final 1/3, which followed the investigation, probably because I worked as a legal assistant in a criminal defense firm for 14 years and it was all very familiar to me. Otherwise, I enjoyed Stanley's story.… (més)
 
Marcat
whymaggiemay | Hi ha 11 ressenyes més | Sep 14, 2011 |
Very interesting account of Mr. Alpert's kidnapping off the streets of New York City. Nowhere in the book does the author mention being targeted by the kidnappers specifically because he is Jewish. Despite this fact the author felt the need to pepper his book with stereotypical references about Jewish culture and his own Jewish upbringing. They occur so often I found them to be a bit distracting and a little out of place in this book.
 
Marcat
Paulslibrary | Hi ha 11 ressenyes més | Jan 1, 2010 |

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Estadístiques

Obres
1
Membres
178
Popularitat
#120,889
Valoració
½ 3.7
Ressenyes
12
ISBN
11
Llengües
1

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