Rich Cohen
Rich Cohen | |
---|---|
Born | Lake Forest, Illinois, U.S. | July 30, 1968
Occupation | Non-fiction writer, journalist, screenplay writer |
Period | 1992–present |
Notable works | Tough Jews (1998) Sweet and Low (2006) Monsters (2013) Vinyl (2016) |
Website | |
authorrichcohen |
Rich Cohen (born July 30, 1968) is an American
He is not to be confused with Richard A. Cohen.
Early life
Cohen was born into a Jewish family in
Career
Journalism
An admirer of the works of journalists
Author
Cohen published his first book Tough Jews: Fathers, Sons, and Gangster Dreams—a non-fiction account of the Jewish gangsters of 1930s Brooklyn, notably those involved with Murder, Inc.—in 1998. Cohen's second work, The Avengers: A Jewish War Story (2000), follows a group of anti-Nazi partisans in the forests of Lithuania at the close of World War II.[7]
Cohen's third work, the memoir Lake Effect was published in 2002. In 2006, Cohen published Sweet and Low: A Family Story, a memoir about the creation of the artificial sweetener, a product invented by Benjamin Eisenstadt, Cohen's grandfather.
In 2009, Cohen published Israel is Real: An Obsessive Quest to Understand the Jewish Nation and its History. In 2010, Cohen co-wrote the memoir When I Stop Talking, You'll Know I'm Dead, the story of American film producer Jerry Weintraub. The book was a New York Times bestseller.[8]
Cohen's story of
Cohen's 2019 book, The Last Pirate of New York: A Ghost Ship, a Killer, and the Birth of a Gangster Nation, details the life and times of Albert W. Hicks, an American criminal active from about 1840 to 1860.
In 2021 and 2022, Cohen published a pair of memoirs: one about fatherhood, the second about his own father. Pee Wees: Confessions of a Hockey Parent appeared in early 2021; it is an examination of the explosion of youth hockey, through the story of Cohen and his son. In May 2022, Cohen published The Adventures of Herbie Cohen, World's Greatest Negotiator, telling the story of his father, the negotiation expert Herb Cohen.
In September 2023,
.Film and television
On February 26, 2007, Paramount Pictures announced it had closed a deal to produce The Long Play, a screenplay which Cohen wrote several drafts for and did research on, for producers Mick Jagger and Martin Scorsese, with Scorsese directing.[13]
In 2012 and 2013 Cohen was an advisor on the Starz series Magic City.[14]
Cohen is a co-creator, with Martin Scorsese, Mick Jagger and Terence Winter, of the HBO series Vinyl.[15]
Critical reception
In 2013, NPR editor Tina Brown called Cohen's essay on the financier Ted Forstmann "very entertaining" and a "must read".[16]
In The New York Times Book Review, writer Vincent Patrick called Cohen's book Tough Jews "marvelous and colorful" with "writing good enough to cause one, at times, to reread a page in order to savor the description".[17] Another New York Times critic Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, called it "exuberant" and "a vivid narrative"; Cohen's book had "taken the noise of these facts and turned it from gunfire into a kind of music".[18]
Critic Michiko Kakutani called Cohen's Sweet and Low "a classic" ... "A telling—and often hilarious—parable about the pursuit and costs of the American Dream".[19] In 2006, the book made the New York Times list of 100 notable books.[20]
In The New York Times Book Review, writer Tony Horwitz said Israel is Real "accomplished the miraculous. It made a subject that has vexed me since childhood into a riveting story."[21]
Critic and historian Mark Lewis called The Fish That Ate the Whale "Kiplingesque" and "fascinating."[22] In The Christian Science Monitor, critic Chris Hartman called the book "masterful and elegantly written ... a cautionary tale for the ages".[23]
Reviewing The Last Pirate of New York in the Wall Street Journal, Rinker Buck wrote, "'The Last Pirate of New York' is history-lite at its best, and readers will finish it with a satisfaction deeply relevant today."[24]
Reviewing The Adventures of Herbie Cohen, World's Greatest Negotiator in the Wall Street Journal,
Awards
- 2009 The Best American Essays of 2008
- 2002 Great Lakes Book Award from the American Booksellers Association for Lake Effect.
Select bibliography
- — (1999). Tough Jews: Fathers, Sons and Gangster Dreams. Vintage. OCLC 877546776.
- — (2001). The Avengers: A Jewish War Story. Vintage Books. OCLC 48155659.
- — (2003). Lake Effect. Vintage. OCLC 1181426522.
- — (2005). Machers and Rockers: Chess Records and the Business of Rock 'n' Roll. Profile. OCLC 58554237.
- — (2007). Sweet and Low: A Family Story. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. OCLC 105485940.
- — (2010). Israel is Real. OCLC 475447642.
- — (2013). The Fish that Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of America's Banana King. OCLC 809411728.
- — (2013). Alex and the Amazing Time Machine. Illustrated by OCLC 859394564.
- — (2014). Monsters: The 1985 Chicago Bears and the Wild Heart of Football. OCLC 868276611.
- — (2017). The Sun & the Moon & the Rolling Stones. OCLC 1073032200.
- — (2018). The Chicago Cubs: Story of a Curse. OCLC 1062803393.
- — (2020). The Last Pirate of New York: A Ghost Ship, a Killer, and the Birth of a Gangster Nation. OCLC 1243500700.
- — (2022). Pee Wees: Confessions of a Hockey Parent. Picador. OCLC 1246141700.
- — (2022). The Adventures of Herbie Cohen: World's Greatest Negotiator. OCLC 1264275629.
Ghostwritten
- —; Weintraub, Jerry (2011). When I Stop Talking, You'll Know I'm Dead: Useful Stories from a Persuasive Man. Twelve. OCLC 1073614353.
- —; OCLC 1157294486.
References
- ^ "Machers And Rockers by Rich Cohen". Barnes and Noble. Archived from the original on June 8, 2011. Retrieved March 20, 2008.
- ^ Cohen, Rich, "King and I", Rolling Stone, November 14, 1996.
- ^ Lovett, Ken, "Daily Politics: Steve Cohen Lands", New York Daily News, September 20, 2011. Archived December 29, 2011, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Ledbetter, C. S., "The Education of A Writer", Author's Desktop, Random House, retrieved 3-20-2008.
- ^ Cohen, Richard, Lake Effect: A Memoir, New York: Knopf, 2001. p. 180.
- ^ Cohen, Rich (October 14, 2022). "For a Suburban Kid, There Was No Purer Sport Than Wiffle Ball". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved October 18, 2022.
- ^ Cohen, Rich (September 11, 2000). "A Final Mission". Newsweek. Retrieved March 20, 2008.
- ^ Jennifer Schuessler, "Inside the List", The New York Times Book Review, April 23, 2010.
- ^ Grushkin, Daniel (June 7, 2012). "Book Review: 'The Fish That Ate the Whale,' by Rich Cohen". Bloomberg Businessweek. Archived from the original on June 8, 2012. Retrieved July 2, 2012.
- ^ "Best Sellers Hardcover Nonfiction". The New York Times November 24, 2013.
- ^ The Sun and the Moon and the Rolling Stone, Penguin Random House Website. Accessed 2016-01-03. Archived March 7, 2016, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "Warring Stones", The Times (U.K.), April 2, 2016.
- ^ McClintock, Pamela; Fleming, Michael (February 27, 2007). "Scorsese, Monahan ready to 'Play'". Variety.
- ^ Brook, Daniel (April 3, 2012). "Jewish Gangsters Get Their Day at Museum". The Forward.
- ^ Tim Goodmen, "'Vinyl': TV Review", Billboard, February 2, 2016.
- ^ NPR Staff, "Tina Brown's Must-Reads: Hidden Lives", Morning Edition, January 22, 2013.
- ^ Patrick, Vincent (April 12, 1998). "This You Call A Stick-up?". The New York Times. Retrieved March 20, 2008.
- ^ Lehmann-Haupt, Christopher (April 16, 1998). "Hardly 'Our Crowd': A Jewish Underworld". The New York Times. Retrieved January 31, 2013.
- ^ Kakutani, Michiko (April 4, 2006). "Problems That Come in Little Packets". The New York Times. Retrieved March 20, 2008.
- ^ "100 Notable Books of the Year". The New York Times. December 4, 2006. Retrieved January 19, 2019.
- ^ Horwitz, Tony (July 26, 2009). "A Land and a People". The New York Times. Retrieved July 26, 2009.
- ^ Lewis, Mark (September 16, 2012). "Banana Republican: 'The Fish That Ate the Whale,' by Rich Cohen". The New York Times. Retrieved September 16, 2012.
- ^ Hartman, Chris (October 18, 2012). "Book Review: The Fish That Ate the Whale". The Christian Science Monitor. Retrieved October 18, 2012.
- ^ Ruck, Rinker (June 28, 2019). "New York's Original Gangster: The Last Pirate of New York by Rich Cohen". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved July 2, 2019.
External links
- Official website
- NPR's Weekend Edition, The Fish That Ate The Whale
- CBS News, The Fish That Ate The Whale
- Appearance on All Things Considered
- Appearance on NPR's The Leonard Lopate Show 2006
- Appearance on NPR's The Leonard Lopate Show 2005
- On Hunter S. Thompson, in The New York Times Book Review
- The Avengers Excerpt, Newsweek Magazine
- Random House author page