Suggestions
Use up and down arrows to review and enter to select.Please wait while we process your payment
If you don't see it, please check your spam folder. Sometimes it can end up there.
If you don't see it, please check your spam folder. Sometimes it can end up there.
Please wait while we process your payment
By signing up you agree to our terms and privacy policy.
Don’t have an account? Subscribe now
Create Your Account
Sign up for your FREE 7-day trial
Already have an account? Log in
Your Email
Choose Your Plan
Save over 50% with a SparkNotes PLUS Annual Plan!
Purchasing SparkNotes PLUS for a group?
Get Annual Plans at a discount when you buy 2 or more!
Price
$24.99 $18.74 /subscription + tax
Subtotal $37.48 + tax
Save 25% on 2-49 accounts
Save 30% on 50-99 accounts
Want 100 or more? Contact us for a customized plan.
Your Plan
Payment Details
Payment Summary
SparkNotes Plus
You'll be billed after your free trial ends.
7-Day Free Trial
Not Applicable
Renews February 10, 2023 February 3, 2023
Discounts (applied to next billing)
DUE NOW
US $0.00
SNPLUSROCKS20 | 20% Discount
This is not a valid promo code.
Discount Code (one code per order)
SparkNotes Plus subscription is $4.99/month or $24.99/year as selected above. The free trial period is the first 7 days of your subscription. TO CANCEL YOUR SUBSCRIPTION AND AVOID BEING CHARGED, YOU MUST CANCEL BEFORE THE END OF THE FREE TRIAL PERIOD. You may cancel your subscription on your Subscription and Billing page or contact Customer Support at custserv@bn.com. Your subscription will continue automatically once the free trial period is over. Free trial is available to new customers only.
Choose Your Plan
Payment Details
Payment Summary
For the next 7 days, you'll have access to awesome PLUS stuff like AP English test prep, No Fear Shakespeare translations and audio, a note-taking tool, personalized dashboard, & much more!
You’ve successfully purchased a group discount. Your group members can use the joining link below to redeem their group membership. You'll also receive an email with the link.
Members will be prompted to log in or create an account to redeem their group membership.
Thanks for creating a SparkNotes account! Continue to start your free trial.
Please wait while we process your payment
Your PLUS subscription has expired
Please wait while we process your payment
Please wait while we process your payment
Marcus Gorman leads a pretty dull life until he meets Jack Diamond. In fact, Marcus decides to take on Jack as a client just after realizes how much his life could use excitement. Not particularly interested in putting his own life in danger (Marcus refuses to smuggle jewels for Jack and becomes nervous when Jack informs him that he is taking Marcus along for a beer run), Marcus feels a vicarious thrill when he hangs out with Jack, one of the country's most notorious gangsters. Marcus loves shooting Jack's machine gun, enchanted by the gun's lethal power. He loves looking at Jack's wife and girlfriend. Eventually, he seduces and sleeps with anonymous women, just as Jack does. Marcus gets a homoerotic thrill from Jack, too. Jack's immense energy attracts those around him. Kiki experiences a certain amount of sexual satisfaction just by hanging around Jack. She relishes the attention she gets just for being Jack's sex object. Being Jack's girlfriend makes Kiki more famous than her dancing ability ever could. Both Marcus and Kiki are so drawn to Jack's villainy that even if they consider leaving him, they always come back to him in the end. Kiki nearly witnesses Jack's bloody demise, but remains true. Marcus hears gruesome stories of Jack's violent mob tactics, but does not leave him. Alice, despite her disapproval of Jack, enjoys some of his villainous glow. The fact that everyone stays with Jack shows how thrilling it is to be near him and to soak up his badness.
In one sense, Jack embodies the man who has achieved the American Dream. Like F. Scott Fitzgerald's Gatsby, Jack comes from nothing and becomes a rich, successful man. Like the protagonist of a Horatio Alger novel, he succeeds against the odds, climbing to fame and riches from the bottom of the Philadelphia slums. However, Jack is compared not just to Gatsby and an Alger creation, but to Ichabod Crane and Rip Van Winkle, fictional American legends from upstate New York. Kennedy is suggesting that if Jack partially achieved the American Dream, he is also partially a legend, a fictional creation—and not just in this novel, which is a fictional memoir. The real man, Jack "Legs" Diamond, was mythologized and even created by the men who wrote and talked about him. The press wrote of his success, lies and tall tales built on it, and Jack himself spread the word of his own fulfillment of the American Dream. Jack's achievement of the American Dream is partly a fact, and partly a fiction created by a variety of authors.
Please wait while we process your payment