Gangsters

In Chapter 4 we see how close he actually is to the crooked gambler Meyer Wolfshiem. During the 1920s, American cities such as New York and Chicago witnessed a great deal of violence as rival gangsters competed for power and influence. Legendary figures such as Al Capone, ‘Lucky’ Luciano, Meyer Lansky and Dutch Schultz were major players in the criminal underworld.

It was notable that a high percentage of these gangsters were from families who had arrived fairly recently in America – individuals who grew up in energetic Italian, Irish and Jewish communities, and then found that respectable routes to success were denied to them because their backgrounds were so different from that of people such as Tom Buchanan.