In a comment on my October 2007 post listing my 25 favorite nonfiction books, reader Dennis suggested Julian Rubenstein’s Ballad of the Whiskey Robber
The book tells the true story of a Transylvanian man who escapes Ceaucescu’s regime and ends up in Budapest, where he becomes a pelt smuggler, pen salesman, Zamboni driver, backup hockey goalie, and, in the end, the most successful bank robber in Eastern Europe, all while Hungary is undergoing the painful transition from communist rule to democracy and a market economy. It is a non-fiction novel of the highest order – by all accounts, completely true, and yet built around a character so rich and fascinating that he seems like he had to have come from someone’s imagination.
The “Whiskey Robber,” Attila Ambrus, was so named because he would get hammered on whiskey before each bank job, but was also a meticulous planner and athletic enough that his hockey teammates referred to him as the “Chicky Panther.” He’s the protagonist and hero, but isn’t entirely sympathetic; aside from the whole stealing thing, he’s a spendthrift, a gambling addict, and an alcoholic, and he becomes reckless with his gun in the last few robberies before he’s captured. He’s struggling to overcome a lousy start in life – his mother walked out when he was one, and his father was cold, distant, and would beat Attila when drunk – but also has strong powers of rationalization. He’s clever and charming – many tellers whose employers he had robbed wouldn’t testify against him or testified that he was kind and courteous during the robberies – but, of course, he’s a thief.
Rubenstein balances Attila’s story with that of the Budapest police force, which chased Attila for six years, during almost all of which time they had little idea of who the Whiskey Robber was. Rubenstein depicts the police force as undermanned and underfunded, a popular second-guessing target for politicians in Hungary’s ever-unstable governments, asking for help from above and from the FBI’s office in Budapest but never receiving it. Attila became a particular thorn in the police’s side thanks to Kriminalis, a popular TV show in the mid-1990s that discussed major criminal cases of the day, a sort of Hungary’s Most Wanted but with a more tabloid feel; the show made Attila into a folk hero, as did Hungarian rapper Ganxsta Zolee*, who (without realizing he was already friends with the Whiskey Robber) recorded a popular song that proclaimed “The Whiskey Robber is the king!”
*The video in that link isn’t for the song about the Whiskey Robber, which I couldn’t find, but Zolee’s entire look in that video is just priceless. I’m sure Cypress Hill would be flattered.
The book’s greatest strength is Rubenstein’s apparent thoroughness. To construct this narrative, covering six years of robberies plus Attila’s life before his first bank job (which was actually in a post office), he would have had to talk to an inordinate number of people involved in the saga, from Ambrus himself to his ex-girlfriends to his hockey teammates to the detectives who came and went while Attila kept on robbing. The level of detail gives the story a rich, novelesque feel and that plus its scoundrel hero are probably what has given the book such a strong cult following.
I listened to the audio version of Ballad, which was the subject of a story in the New York Times a a few years ago because it was a DIY project: The publisher of Ballad didn’t want to pay to produce an audiobook, so the author cobbled together a cast of famous fans of the book and some studio time and did it himself. In some ways, it’s a blast: The characters, particularly Attila, develop more personality over the course of the book because they’re voiced individually.
I hate to criticize Rubenstein, since he read the book himself out of necessity rather than choice, but his oral style is not ideal. He reads the book in a drab, descending tone, even during chase scenes or other exciting sequences. He also mispronounces a lot of English words, like victuals (he says it as it’s written), closeted (“cl?-ZEHT-t?d”), and the old Italian currency lire (“leer”), which had me wondering whether he’d mispronounced any of the Hungarian words and names as well. These things bug me. YMMV.
Incidentally, Attila now has a myspace page. He can’t use a computer or receive mail in prison, but he apparently updates this during his allotted phone time by telling whoever’s updating the page what to write. There’s not that much of interest on there other than a video allowing you to see what a Chicky Panther looks like. I do like that he lists I, Claudius as his favorite book; I wondered if the prison library also has the sequel, Claudius the God.
I don’t read enough nonfiction to update that top-25 list often, but if I was to redo it today, I’d slot Ballad second, behind only Barbarians at the Gate.
Hi Keith,
I read the galley of this book years ago and loved it. At that point there was rumor Johnny Depp was going to buy the film rights and play Attila in the movie. I guess it didn’t work out.
Thanks for the recommendation–just bought this from amazon for the princely sum of 53 c. I agree F > N-F but loved both “Into Thin Air” and “A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius” and would recommend both to just about anybody.
Keith,
Unrelated to the book, but I didn’t know where else to put it. Is your whole blog on ESPN going to be Insider now? I saw where the new draft blog will be, but when I visit your blog now, the site indicates that your entire blog is Insider.
Off topic, but anyone experience the blog being unavailable for a few days besides me? I was unable to access The Dish for the past few days while I was able to get on other sites so it was not my connection. Yet I see no mention of what happened. Did I miss something or am I in a Twilight Zone episode or something?
The Dish has been fine of late. Keith’s blog at the World Wide Leader has been all screwy, though.
That’s interesting Kevin, because I have the Dish saved as a fav in my browser so I know it wasn’t a case of typing the URL incorrectly. It kept coming up that the site was unavailable. I’m surprised it only happened to me?
Good though these are, I’d never pick them 1-2 in nonfiction, so I checked your old list. Seems our tastes differ (No Shirer? No Terkel? No Gibbon?), I can answer your worry about In Cold Blood as ‘fiction’: it appears on top-novel lists because it was billed as a ‘nonfiction novel’. Some listmakers buy that.
Keith? Are you on a leave of absence? And if not, wtf is up w/ the ‘blog’ section over at the wwl? Also – for what possible reason would you be ‘absenced’?
JW: I wrote on Friday, and have another piece for tomorrow. They’re having some trouble juggling the fact that my stuff is now split between two blogs:
wcw: I just don’t read that much nonfiction – one book so far this year, six last year, and seven the year before – so I’m sure I’ve missed several of the “great” nonfiction books. It’s just not my genre; I like nonfiction books that read like novels.
Keith,
I am trying to do some research using baseball statistics but I can not seem to find a site that had all I need or that has free stats available going back as far as I need them to go. For example: If I want to know how many pitches Dwight Gooden averaged per inning in 1987, I am not able to find those numbers as they stop at 1999. Can you recommend a good site that I can use? I have been to baseball prospectus, baseball reference, mlb.com, espn.com, the hardball times, and numerous other sites and and they all seem to lack some of the information I need or do not go back far enough. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.
Are you going to Spring Training games in Florida this year? Arizona?
Following you on Twitter now.
I picked this book up on a whim after reading a few pages at a bookstore. What a crazy story! If even half were true it would be unbelievable.
As I’d never actually heard the word victuals spoken before, only read it, I had no idea how it was pronounced. The more you know…
Well thanks for the spoiler…