Retail Gangster: The Insane, Real-Life Story of Crazy Eddie
Book by Gary Weiss
DETAILS
Publisher : Hachette Books (August 23, 2022) Language : English Hardcover : 336 pages ISBN-10 : 0306924552 ISBN-13 : 978-0306924552 Item Weight : 1.23 pounds Dimensions : 6.4 x 1.35 x 9.4 inches Best Sellers Rank: #40,004 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #39 in Organized Crime True Accounts #105 in Business Professional's Biographies #344 in U.S. State & Local History , A biography of the spectacular rise and fall of Eddie Antar, better known as "Crazy Eddie," whose home electronics empire changed the world even as it turned out to be one of the biggest business scams of all time Back in the fall of 2016 we heard the news about the passing of Eddie Antar, "Crazy Eddie" as he was known to millions of people, the man behind the successful chain of electronic stores and one of the most iconic ad campaigns in history. Few things evoke the New York of a particular era the way "Crazy Eddie! His prices are insaaaaane!" does. The journalist Herb Greenberg called his death the "end of an era" and that couldn't be more true. What's insane is that his story has never been told. Before Enron, before Madoff, before The Wolf of Wall Street , Eddie Antar's corruption was second to none. The difference was that it was a street franchise, a local place that was in the blood stream of everyone's daily life in the 1970s and early '80s. And Eddie pulled it off with a certain style, an in your face blue collar chutzpah. Despite the fact that then U.S. Attorney Michael Chertoff called him "the Darth Vader of capitalism" after the extent of the fraud was revealed, one of the largest SEC frauds in American history after Crazy Eddie's stores went public in 1984, Eddie was talked about fondly by the people who worked for him. They still do--there are myriads of ex-Crazy Eddie employee web pages that still attract fans, and the Crazy Eddie fraud scheme is now taught in every business school across the United States. Many years have passed since the franchise went down in spectacular fashion but Crazy Eddie's moment has endured the way that iconic brands and characters do--one only need Google the media outpouring that accompanied his death. Maybe it's because it crystallized everything about 1970s New York almost perfectly, the merchandise and rise of consumer electronics (stereos!), the ads (cheesy!), the money (cash!). In Retail Gangster , investigative journalist Gary Weiss takes readers behind the scenes of one of the most unbelievable business scam stories of all time, a story spanning continents and generations, reaffirming the old adage that the truth is often stranger than fiction. Read more
REVIEW
New York City is a place that is constantly changing and evolving. There are many people who have arrived in the past 25 years who speak of the New York of old (i.e. last 50 years or so) as if they were there. If you were to say to those people "His prices are INSANE" and they look at you with a blank stare and can't quite place what you are talking about, you know that they weren't there. Mr. Weiss' book brings that entire time period back to life without having to go to YouTube and watch Jerry Carroll's commercials again to get a sense of what the world was like during the 1970s and 1980s when Crazy Eddie was the king of home electronics. As a kid during the 1980s, I remember watching television and WANTING to see a Crazy Eddie commercial instead of a TV show, because they were that entertaining, and WANTING to visit a Crazy Eddie store. As an adult, I thought I knew and understood the story of what had happened to this colossal New York City institution and Eddie Antar, but I merely knew but a few paragraphs of what was written in this true masterpiece of a book. Mr. Weiss was able to capture the sights and sounds of what New York City was like during that time in descriptive prose that gives justice to what it was like to live there in its gritty, pre-Internet days. There are so many twists and turns to the story along with so many colorful characters that it would not be able to fit into a Hollywood movie (but could definitely in an HBO mini-series!). Fact is definitely more creative than what someone might imagine if this story was a work of fiction. I typically buy books that I think I will want to reread and I was not disappointed with this one. It's definitely hard to put down once you get started and if I am ever asked to recommend a book to someone that depicts a New York City story from that time period, this will be my go to.
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