The Rose Man of Sing Sing

July 14, 2003
Journalist Morris (Jailhouse Journalism) excellently portrays Charles E. Chapin (1858–1930), scandal-dogged legendary city editor of Joseph Pulitzer's New York Evening World. Backed by extensive research, Morris builds the driven man's roller-coaster life with each masterfully etched chapter, starting with an overview of Chapin's career and demise, succeeding ones detailing his childhood, his apprenticeship with a Kansas newspaper and his arrival in Chicago, landing a plum reporting job at the Tribune. Chapin quickly excels at his new job, with his skills for sniffing out a story, finding its emotional core and writing it up in colorful, energetic prose. After a series of successes as a reporter and editor in Chicago, Chapin moves to New York and is hired at the World, wowing his boss, reporters and rivals. Morris portrays Chapin's turbulent personal life and the world of yellow journalism that ruled newspapers of that time, sharing captivating facts and anecdotal glimpses of early 20th-century America. Dogged by illness, the burden of a fragile wife and growing debt, Chapin, enjoying the fruits of a wildly successful career, suddenly faces financial ruin and scandal after a run of bad investments, which leads him to decide to murder his wife and himself. Unable to shoot himself after killing his wife in 1918, Chapin flees but is captured, tried and sentenced to 20 years to life in New York's notorious Sing Sing prison after a sensational, grueling trial. Morris's impressive achievement will enthrall readers. (Nov. 3)Forecast: Although published by a university press, this work has mainstream appeal and could draw in general American history readers and lovers of true crime.