Writer: Neil Kleid
Artist: Jake Allen
Publisher: NBM Publishing
Allie Tanennbaum lives a life devoid of values other than excitement and power. To him, the only family he knows is the group of guys he works with everyday. However, the kind of employment that Mr. Tanennbaum engages in is not exactly the most virtuous job in the world, nor the dullest. He is a gangster in the employ of Louis Lepke Buchalter and, together with other Jewish toughs like himself, part of the infamous Mafia organization known as Murder, Inc. When we see Tanennbaum talk in the pages of Brownsville, we are reading the words of a smug man who is proud of the person he is and the work he does. Everything revolves around him, and concepts such as family or marriage are not important in the big scheme of things. Still, we never see Allie pull a gun or directly kill someone throughout this entire graphic novel. He basically is the hero here, like it or not. Allie is blind to the simple fact that real family has much more enriching value than a family of crooks, where value is determined by a body count or a bankroll. Without this knowledge, Allie will never grow into a real man, but will remain a boy in man’s clothing.
Brownsville is a work that shows that no subject matter is too alien for a graphic novel. From the jacket cover, the reader is told that this is a work of non-fiction and that the gangsters in this comic are the real deal, not the fictional thugs we see in TV and the movies. Still, these characters are still the creations of Neil Kleid and Jake Allen, particularly Tanennbaum and Abe Reles, the two main players in this drama. Speaking of Mr. Kleid, he truly has a great command of this tale, controlling the action and suspense with a sure hand. Nothing is rushed or glossed over, and Allie and Reles are both fleshed out thoroughly, giving the reader the chance to really walk around in their skins for a while. Also, scenes without dialogue or narration are chosen wisely for maximum emotional impact, such as the scene where Allie is given the news that Lepke is turning himself in and he has to return to New York City. The page following this news shows Allie with a phone in one hand and his hat in the other, eyes facing the door in front of him. You know, even with the absence of words, that he is weighing his return to the City and his gangster life or an escape back to the comfort of family and an honest life. Scenes like this really pronounce the quality and care that was put within the two covers of this book. Yet, these scenes would lose a lot of power if not for the wonderful art provided by Jake Allen.
Allen uses an abundance of moody shading and effective close-ups to make Kleid’s tale even more moving. He has used his knowledge of crime movie visual terminology and film noir techniques to build a convincing portrait of this period in American history. For instance, the entire scene detailing Pep Strauss and his contract kill was moved by images only, and many of the individual panels reminded me of films I have seen over the years, particularly stylized film noir movies such as Double Indemnity, Asphalt Jungle, and even Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train and Leone’s The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. While Allen’s figures tend to have almost a cartoonish quality at times, their humanity and vulnerability is also very apparent, and these qualities help us to connect with men we could never hope to connect with in real life. Yes, the characters are very unsympathetic, but I ended up rooting for Allie and hoping he would get away from the authorities and the mafia, even though Allie is just as scummy as the people he runs with.
One scene that continually sticks with me as I write this review is the murder of Walter Sage and the subsequent dumping of his body. We truly learn who the real Allie Tanennbaum is, especially when contrasted with contract killer Pep Strauss. When the group tries to figure out a place to dump Sage’s body, Allie thinks of the lime pit on the grounds of his father’s old hotel. The look on Allie’s face as he thinks of this possibility displays a child-like glee, as if he is discussing a game of stickball rather than the burial of a dead body. When they arrive at the lime pit, Allie and Pep Strauss start to prepare the body for disposal and talk about themselves as they work. When Pep asks why Allie was in the crime business, Allie answers, “I don’t think I ever was a good Jewish boy.” In regards to first meeting Lepke and Gurrah, he says, “There was something about them...style, cool...toughness...They were my ticket away from being Pop’s good Jewish boy, I guess.” These answers by Allie display a childish mentality and temperament, and from that moment on, I couldn’t look at Allie as a cold-blooded gangster, but rather a ridiculous adolescent who is running with the wrong crowd despite his parents’ reservations. Asked if he has any regrets, Allie replies, “Naw. Who has time for that?” The future is not a consideration for him; only his present condition holds any value for him. On the other hand, as Allie shoots the same questions back at Pep, we see the mentality of the mob killer. Pep says, “Pop taught me to do what I’m best at.” As he sinks Sage in the lime pit, he also says, “Plus, I get to send messages like this. That’s what I call job satisfaction.” This is a portrait of a sociopath who has no conception of human dignity or the value of life. His is a job like any other job, only he enjoys the duties of this particular job and carries no regrets about his own lack of moral responsibility. For me, this scene drove the rest of the tale for me, leading me to a very pleasant resolution in the end. It also proved to me that this graphic novel is long on smarts and short on the derivative elements of other crime comics I have read.
I recommend this graphic novel very strongly, especially for those readers seeking a deftly written and drawn tale carrying with it more substance than action, blood, and guts. This is a gangster tale with a heart of gold, and Kleid and Allen should be very proud of the fruit of their labors.
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