The Short Sweet Dream of Eduardo Gutierrez

Jimmy Breslin's The Story of Eduardo Gutierrez tells the unspeakably sad tale of a young illegal Mexican immigrant who died working at a New York City construction site. The man, who drowned in November 1999 after falling three stories into wet cement, was employed by a builder--"a crook with blueprints" Breslin writes--whose record of building code violations was long and well known, but who stayed in business because of his "untouchable" political status. Breslin weaves Gutierrez's story with one of blatant corruption reaching from Brooklyn's Hasidic community through Rudolph Giuliani's administration and Hillary Clinton's senatorial campaign to her husband's last-minute presidential pardons. Breslin writes with white-hot anger and thorough disgust--he says of New York officials that "many are paid and few are apprehended." At the center is the shy, 22-year-old Gutierrez, whose journey to help his family ended in loneliness, exploitation, fear, and, finally, death. --H. O'Billovitch