Theodore Kaye’s career choice—sugar industrialist, seller of candy and other delicacies—was made a crime. Now he's the Don of the Jawbreakers, a sugar gang that runs the city streets, and he’s coated his gooey businessman filling with delicious criminal exterior. A deal with the corrupt mayor secures his gang’s place at the top. But deals can change.
Danny, a young organist and a pastor’s brother, wants to make a name for himself—something along the lines of “Crazy Guns” or “Ghostface,” if possible. So he joins the Jawbreakers. He’ll do what it takes to climb the ranks, and he’ll do it with a clean conscience. Mostly clean. He’ll play it by ear.
The Jawbreakers soon find themselves in all-out war with the government. They become something more than criminals. They become competitors.
Funny, thrilling, and dangerously clever, Badfellas stretches between prohibition gangster story, political satire, and absurdist comedy with ease. It’s all here: wordplay, an underground sugar economy, and a sociopath clown. What more do you want?
“For too long the streets of our fair city have been overrun with the white menace—and I’m not talking about the elderly gang that’s been robbing people outside health food stores. No, the white menace, Chattanoogan oatmeal, crazy sand, the Devil’s salt, sucrose, Brussels opium. Sugar!”