Three Eddies A Novel By Eddie Resner

The principal dysfunctional character has a very difficult journey during a double dip recession. He fails to make it in his father’s small business and ends up driving a truck, delivering mattresses, with a hidden stash of cocaine. His descent toward the underworld is a template for others in his situation.
Being one degree of separation from an organized crime boss adds tension throughout his path toward self-destruction. He is obsessed to find out if his behavior is inherited through a genetic predisposition or is it the result of his harsh environment, probably some of both.
The novel begins with the storyteller in a hit-and-run accident. Eddie runs-over an old Sicilian homeless man wearing a yarmulke, on his first delivery of cocaine. The yarmulke comes into play later in this story.
Did this forty-year-old protagonist behave the way he did consciously or did he react because of his environment. Eddie is a likeable but sometimes pathetic protagonist and continues the journey via his storytelling to his “crew.” He muses about his grandfather’s prohibition years, then the murder of his grandfather’s first wife. His source of information is from an old 1900 journal, family photos, and diaries.
Later he talks about his father entering the world of politics which ends in a successful career in the construction industry.
Young Eddie has a best friend and mentor, by the name of Johnny Boy. He helps Eddie separate his disorganized thinking and does what Johnny perceives to be best for him and Eddie’s three children born out of wedlock.
The journey includes mystery, romance and the history of living in the big city for the past 100 years.
The story demonstrates the erosive effect of corrupt politicians and organized crime on the ordinary person. Many future middle-aged folks will live the life of this storyteller. What we have is action by three principal characters (Grandfather, father, and the storyteller) about life with one degree of separation from gangsters and politicians, but at arm’s length from the big bosses. All three of our characters have their “crew,” with nicknames like Wall-eye, Flex-o, Trustee, and Butch.
These principals participate in government for their own advancement, not the good of the electorate. The first question you’ll ask yourself is; Will the anti-hero’s journey end in jail or in a good family environment by marrying his new pregnant girlfriend.
Scenes similar to Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in America are sprinkled throughout the novel. The early part of the story has a memory that goes back to the Roaring 20s and Al Capone; the middle section covers the 1950s then ends with present day struggles, showing what Eddie wants. The narrative includes gritty events casting a dark shadow on the future. It is a character driven story of men corrupted by organized crime, poverty, and politics. Many traits of real life characters found in The Best of Mike Royko, a famous Chicago Sun-Times columnist, will be found in the fictional characters that live in Three Eddies.
Some of the revelations in the book are based on current and past criminal activity. Corporate boardrooms are shown to be infiltrated by the mob and are new meeting places for the politicians to create new conspiracies. Dan Brown has his Illuminati this author has the International Seven. Regions are established, that sometime overlap, for the marketing of illegal drugs, weapons, coffee, and human trafficking. This criminal activity adds to the conspirator’s way of life.