Overview of Bombed in His Bed: The Confessions of Jewish Gangster Myer Rush
It is truly one of the most powerful stories being produced during this time or any time: it is a sweeping epic, taking in the depression, the immigrant experience, the origins of the mobster world--many of the colorful characters of the period herein--describing a man that wanted to use whatever talents he had to never be poor. It has elements of Dickens, Damon Runyon, Dashell Hammett, and is reminiscent a little of Bonnie And Clyde, The Sting, The Godfather, Goodfellas, and even has elements of Tom Sawyer or Huckleberry Finn, as Myer meets the lad from Hattiesberg Mississippi, Rusty Stokes. It covers the War time period, the 50's when the world was just starting to accelerate after the War Years, then the Go Go 60's, when Myer came of age and created enormous wealth and suffered the depths of total destruction. Then on to the 70's where he sat in prison wrongfully accused, until he meets his earnest journalist nephew, and they both discover a great deal about themselves during this talk, which begins with Bruce a bit in awe of his uncle and matures into a probing, searching, exploration into the man that is his uncle--a man he did not fear, but whose name created so much fear. The story becomes incredibly wise as it evolves, such that the reviewer of the book is correct when she says that there are 'themes of crime and redemption in the life of this complicated gangster'.
Bombed in His Bed: The Confessions of Jewish Gangster Myer Rush. This amazing life story which had been sought after for years by journalists from around the world, but which gangster Myer Rush exclusively shared with his nephew has intrigued and captivated high profile entertainment industry professionals.
The man who died twice, Toronto Jewish gangster Myer Rush miraculously survived a bomb thought to have been planted by the mafia so that he couldn't testify about a $100 million dollar stock fraud that many considered to be the "crime of the century."
Dying twice en-route to the hospital, revived both times by a young paramedic, Rush was pronounced "dead" as a special report on Canadian national TV and radio. These reports were corrected shortly thereafter, saying that he was clinging to life with a 20% chance for survival. He lived to tell his tales to his nephew writer.
"Rosen's book reads like a blast of adrenalin: every episode like an exploding meteorite. If you read one chapter, you're hooked. You can't put it down!"
This quote is courtesy of J. Tony Serra, a trial lawyer immortalized in the movie True Believer starring James Woods and Robert Downey, Jr.
As Rush acquired great wealth and notoriety, the story recounts a life that would take him to all the corners of the globe including Canada, the U.S., Paris, Karachi, Havana, Antwerp, Amsterdam, Israel, Panama, and the cities where he was incarcerated, London, Atlanta, Miami, and Kingston, Ontario.
Amazing and intimate recollections include the time Rush, several months before the bombing, was beaten in his home by suspected Mafia thugs wielding baseball bats, trying to silence him from divulging incriminating information. Asked to pick a suspect from a line-up, he enters the room and makes a positive identification by busting the man's jaw and walking away. He ran guns into Palestine from Toronto after a personal request from a Rabbi who heard he was the toughest and most reliable Jewish boy in town. And, he was a "cat burglar" for over 20 years, tutored to make Master Keys in hotels across North America, thus enabling him to enter virtually any hotel room desired, stealing wallets and jewels while people slept just a step or two away.
Myer Rush scaled the heights of wealth and success, but also suffered the depths of loss and despair. His story is even more intimate, because it was given to the gangster's award winning writer/nephew at the behest of his mother Alma
