Plexus Publishing, Inc. News

The Differences Between Real Nucky Johnson and HBO's Nucky Thompson Go Beyond the Fictionalized Name

Author Nelson Johnson, who literally wrote the book on the real Enoch "Nucky" Johnson, says HBO's Terence Winter has said the fictionalized character created for the TV version of Boardwalk Empire is 70 percent drawn from Johnson's 2002 book of the same name.

When I told Johnson, a state Superior Court judge whom I've known for more than two decades, that it strikes me that the percentages are more like 60 percent fiction and 40 percent fact in the HBO series, he laughed and quickly said, "You're not wrong."

USABookNews.com, the premier online magazine and review website for mainstream and independent publishing houses, announced the winners and finalists of THE 2012 USA BEST BOOK AWARDS on November 16, 2012. Over 400 winners and finalists were announced in over 100 categories covering print, e-books and audio books. Awards were presented for titles published in 2011 and 2012.

Jeffrey Keen, President and CEO of USA Book News, said this year’s contest yielded over 1500 entries from mainstream and independent publishers, which were then narrowed down to over 400 winners and finalists.

The Last Newspaperman by Mark Di Ionno was one of the six finalists in the General Fiction category this year.

Mark Di Ionno is a columnist at The Star-Ledger, New Jersey’s largest newspaper. He has won the New Jersey Press Association’s first-place award for column writing four of the last five years. Di Ionno got his start in newspapers as a Navy journalist and has been a reporter, editor, and columnist his entire adult life.

Prior to writing for The Star-Ledger, he was a sports columnist at the New York Post. He is an adjunct professor of journalism at Rutgers–Newark, his alma mater, and has written three award-winning books on New Jersey history and culture. 

The Last Newspaperman is his first novel.

MEDFORD—A new book from Medford-based Plexus Publishing promises to deliver what the publisher calls a “warts-and-all portrayal of the Garden State’s fractious criminal justice system.”

Jacket: The Trials of a New Jersey Criminal Defense Attorney is a memoir by Trenton attorney and former New Jersey state assemblyman John W. Hartmann.

"In writing Jacket I wanted to provide a '”from the trenches” view of the criminal justice system in New Jersey—from the street to the courtroom to the verdict," Hartmann said in a press release. "The system is never pretty, it's not always fair, and after reading Jacket, it's up to the reader to draw his own conclusion as to whether or not it works."

Join the Cherry Hill Historical Commission for...  Boardwalk Empire: An Evening with Judge Nelson Johnson on Tuesday, October 23, at 7:00 PM.  The event will take place at the Cherry Hill Public Library Conference Center (Lower Level) and is free and open to the Public.

In celebration of National Humanities Month, the CHHC is delighted to have Judge Nelson Johnson speak about his book, Boardwalk Empire: The Birth, High Times and Corruption of Atlantic City at the Cherry Hill Public Library on October 23rd.

The basis for the hit HBO series, Boardwalk Empire is the first book to make sense of Atlantic City. A bustling little city by the seashore, totally dependent upon money spent by tourists, Atlantic City's popularity rose in the early 20th century and peaked during Prohibition. The resort's singular purpose of providing a good time to its visitors - whether lawful or not -demanded a single mentality to rule the town. In Boardwalk Empire, Nucky Johnson, Louis "the Commodore" Kuehnle, Frank "Hap" Farley, and Atlantic City itself spring to life in all their splendor.

Author Nelson Johnson traces "AC" from its birth as a quiet seaside health resort, through the notorious backroom politics and power struggles, to the city's astonishing rebirth.

This autumn, the thrill of reading will bloom when bibliophiles converge in this historic South Jersey town. The Collingswood Book Festival is a big literary event that exudes small-town, friendly ambience.

COLLINGSWOOD - For the little ones in his audience at the 10th Annual Collingswood Book Festival Saturday, Ernie Jewell’s melding of Aerosmith with macaroni and cheese — “the fifth food group” — had a good beat and you could dance to it.

On a warm fall day, the book festival stretched for blocks along Haddon Avenue and included about 200 authors and vendors.

Journalism also was represented by Amy Waldman, a former New York Times reporter and author of a 9/11-themed novel, “The Submission,” and Mark Di Ionno, a columnist for the The Star-Ledger in Newark whose fictional book, “The Last Newspaperman,” tells the story of a 1930s tabloid reporter.

Memoir by John W. Hartmann—Criminal Defense Attorney and the Youngest Republican Ever Elected to the State Assembly—Provides a Candid and Humorous Look Inside the NJ Criminal Justice System and Trenton Politics

The Jacket will debuts Nov. 5, 2012. Plexus Publishing, Inc. announced a November 5 release date for Jacket: The Trials of a New Jersey Criminal Defense Attorney. This “provocative and bitingly funny memoir,” by Trenton attorney and former state assemblyman John W. Hartmann offers a warts-and-all portrayal of New Jersey’s fractious criminal justice system.

“John Hartmann paints a vivid picture of the ‘New Jersey Way’ of prosecuting and defending persons accused of crimes,” according to Robert P. George, McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton University. George called Jacket “a raucous ride through the New Jersey criminal court system.”

Central to Jacket is the case of a man who has spent three years behind bars for a robbery he obviously didn’t commit. As Hartmann recounts his effort to free the client on appeal, he dishes out amusing anecdotes from his life in law and politics, shares Garden State trivia, and offers advice on how to start a legal practice, prepare clients for trial, cross-examine witnesses, pick juries, and make prison hooch.

“In writing Jacket I wanted to provide a ‘from the trenches’ view of the criminal justice system in New Jersey—from the street to the courtroom to the verdict,” Hartmann explained. “The system is never pretty, it’s not always fair, and after reading Jacket, it’s up to the reader to draw his own conclusion as to whether or not it works.”

Several prominent attorneys have praised Jacket. Thomas Mesereau, the lawyer who acquitted Michael Jackson of child sexual abuse charges in 2005, called the book “a candid, colorful, and penetrating exposé of the gritty realities in our criminal justice system,” while Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi’s attorney Raymond Raya said, “This book will change your life—especially if you’re charged with knocking over a liquor store in the Garden State.” According to Raya, “Hartmann hits the perfect combination of trial strategy and personal anecdotes that makes for a great read.”

“I was drawn to the honesty and humor in Jacket,” said John B. Bryans, Hartmann’s editor at Plexus. “John Hartmann invites controversy and clearly enjoys skewering sacred cows, but he’s also charmingly self-deprecating and passionate about his work defending the accused. His colorful descriptions of people he’s met in and around Trenton’s streets, courts, and prisons can’t help but make you laugh out loud.”

John W. Hartmann is an attorney with a private practice near Princeton, in Mercer County, New Jersey, where he lives with his wife and two children. He has written one other nonfiction book, The American Partisan: Henry Lee and the Struggle for Independence, 1776–1780 (Burd Street Press, 2000), and is currently at work on his first novel.

By Phil Garber - MOUNTAIN LAKES - “The Last Newspaper Man,” Mountain Lakes resident Mark DiIonno’s first work of fiction, is a must read for any reporter who hopes to understand why the field has too often devolved to largely, surface, sensational, often irrelevant and even fictional news coverage.

It also will open the eyes of those non-journalists who want to learn why reporting has taken the turn it has over the last 100-plus years. And, according to DiIonno, it has been a wrong, left turn.

The book is told from the perspective of a young reporter working for a fictional, dying publication in a dying field. The reporter meets up with Frederick Haines, an old-time, hard-headed, jaded, newsman with the New York Daily Mirror, the fictional major tabloid of the day, who talks about his experiences and regrets covering the major events of his day, including the Lindbergh baby kidnapping, the Hindenburg disaster, the blaze aboard the Morro Castle luxury liner and the 1938 radio broadcast, “War of the Worlds,” that “reported” the invasion by aliens of a small, New Jersey town.

Plexus Publishing released Mark Di Ionno’s first novel, “The Last Newspaperman,” Sept. 17.

“The Last Newspaperman” is a story about tabloid journalism in the 1920s and 30s, and how it created the crime-saturated and celebrity-obsessed media we have today. Di Ionno, an award-winning columnist for the Star-Ledger, will make numerous personal appearances in support of the novel’s national launch this fall.

“While much of the action is set in New Jersey in the 1930s, ‘The Last Newspaperman’ is not strictly a historical novel,” Di Ionno said. “My goal was to connect the past with the contemporary, sensationalist media that dominates the airwaves, newsstands and Internet.”

The novel’s fictional protagonist is Frederick Haines, a one-time star tabloid reporter for the New York Daily Mirror now nearing the end of his life.

A young reporter on assignment listens with rapt attention as Haines gives him the back stories on the Lindbergh baby kidnapping, the Hindenburg disaster, the deadly Morro Castle cruise ship fire, and the hysteria that followed Orson Welles’s “War of the Worlds” broadcast.

By his own admission, Haines is reckless with the facts, with little regard for the truth or the feelings of the people directly impacted by the stories he covers.

Each year, an outstanding practitioner in an arts-related field is conferred the honor of being named Hammonton’s Artist of the Year. This year the Hammonton Art District Steering Committee awarded this title to Mr. Nelson Johnson, a Hammonton resident and author of Boardwalk Empire: The Birth, High Times, and Corruption of Atlantic City, which inspired the acclaimed HBO series, as well asThe Northside: African Americans and the Creation of Atlantic City.

GLOUCESTER TWP.  — The author of the book behind the popular HBO series “Boardwalk Empire” will compare the real Nucky Johnson of Atlantic City history to the fictional Nucky Thompson as portrayed in the series during his second appearance at Camden County College this year.

Nelson Johnson will present “Boardwalk Empire, Part II: Nucky Johnson is Back in Town and He Means Business” at 7 p.m. Nov. 29 in Civic Hall, which is inside the Connector Building on the College’s Blackwood Campus. CCC’s Center for Civic Leadership and Responsibility is presenting the event, which will include a question-and-answer session and a book signing.

“The award-winning HBO series ‘Boardwalk Empire’ attracts millions of viewers to a fictional version of Atlantic City fraught with violence and sex, which often embellishes the historical truth,” noted Center for Civic Leadership and Responsibility director John Pesda. “Nelson Johnson, a gifted writer and speaker, will return to Camden County College to set the record straight with a fact-based account of the city and Nucky Johnson's role.”

Martin Scorsese has won an Emmy for directing the series premiere of Boardwalk Empire, the primetime HBO drama based on Nelson Johnson’s Boardwalk Empire: The Birth, High Times, and Corruption of Atlantic City. 

In addition to directing the pilot, Scorsese is also an executive producer on the series. The pilot episode aired on September 19, 2010 and led to HBO’s almost immediate decision to pick up the series for a second season.

In an early interview about the series, Scorsese was was quoted:

To me, it's as if we're talking now about the 1980s or late 1970s. That was like yesterday to me. The 20s in my head were always very present because my parents always referred to it: the music, the people, the clothes. I know all the songs from that period; I know all the films. We knew it all. And so it was a natural transition. But you know I really was fascinated with the idea of working with Terry Winter and these guys, and taking these characters over 13 hours, developing them, developing their story, the complications of corruption in American politics.

Anthony Venutolo of The Star-Ledger covered the award for NJ.com.

Emmy Awards 2011: Martin Scorsese wins Directing for a Drama Series

Oscar-winning director Martin Scorsese has won Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series for the pilot of "Boardwalk Empire."

The period HBO drama was adapted from Nelson Johnson's best-selling non-fiction book "Boardwalk Empire: The Birth, High Times, and Corruption of Atlantic City." It centered on real-life criminal kingpin Enoch "Nucky" Johnson. On the show, the central character's name was changed to Enoch "Nucky" Thompson (Steve Buscemi). He portrays the Atlantic County Treasurer who rose to prominence during the Prohibition period of the '20s and '30s in Atlantic City.

The show is run by Emmy Award-winning screenwriter Terence Winter of "The Sopranos." Other producers include Scorsese, Mark Wahlberg and frequent episode director Tim Van Patten.

Jeff Vasser, president of the Atlantic City Convention & Visitors Authority announced today that historian Nelson Johnson will be honored with the Spirit of Hospitality Award at the 14th Annual Atlantic City Host Awards in May.

“Nelson Johnson has been a supporter of Atlantic City throughout its stages of evolution,” said Vasser. “His fondness of Atlantic City is not only evident in the fact that he’s been a member of the community for more than 30 years, but also in the two decades he spent researching and writing Boardwalk Empire, essentially a love letter to the city.”

The Spirit of Hospitality Award is given to an outstanding individual who has made a significant long-term contribution to the region’s hospitality and travel industry each year.

This year's recipient, local attorney and now Superior Court Judge, Johnson is probably best known as the author of Boardwalk Empire: The Birth, High Times, and Corruption of Atlantic City. First published in 2002, HBO purchased the television rights to Boardwalk Empire and with, Terence Winters, Emmy Award-winning writer of The Sopranos, created the award winning TV series that first aired last September.  The HBO series stares Steve Buscemi as Nucky Thompson, based on the real-life Enoch “Nucky” Johnson.

Johnson has recently published a sequel to Boardwalk Empire which was released by Plexus Publishing, Inc. in November of 2010. His new book, The Northside: African Americans and the Creation of Atlantic City chronicles the story of Atlantic City’s Black community and its critical role in the transformation of Atlantic City from a quiet beach village into a national resort.  Plexus Publishing has made a sample chapter from The Northside available online.

Along with the Spirit of Hospitality Award, winners from 26 different categories will be announced in the gala event. Proceeds will benefit The ACCVA Foundation, a charitable organization created by the Atlantic City Convention & Visitors Authority.

From: Shoring up the Boardwalk Empire, a black History Month feature.

When Judge Nelson Johnson wrote Boardwalk Empire, his history of corrupt Atlantic City, he certainly had no idea the Prohibition-era chapters would inspire the celebrated HBO series.

But he did know this: The chapter on the African American involvement in the creation of the resort - Chapter 3, titled "A Plantation by the Sea" - was destined to be the basis for another book.

"It became apparent if you remove the black experience from Atlantic City's history, then the town never comes to be," Johnson said in a phone interview from his chambers in the Atlantic County Civil Courthouse in Atlantic City.

"When you have two generations where 95 percent of the hotel workforce was African American, then how does this town ever develop as a regional, national resort unless you have the black experience?

"Intellectually this really bothered me," he said. "I knew a single chapter wasn't going to do it."

The resulting book, The Northside: African Americans and the Creation of Atlantic City (Plexus Publishing, $24.95), appeared late last year and has sold about 2,500 copies. It is now in its second printing. Boardwalk Empire, published in 2002, has sold close to 100,000 copies, said Plexus publisher John Bryans.

As to Boardwalk Empire, Johnson said he was most gratified not by the HBO series, but by the fact that three colleges - Rutgers, Stockton, and Princeton - are using the book in urban history classes.

"I'm thrilled that these people who really helped me are still alive," said Johnson, who plans no book tour but says he will never turn down a church, library, or school.

"When you have first-person accounts from people who experienced something, it's like a piece of gold thread, you can tie together the story."

The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey will confer an honorary degree, Doctor of Humane Letters, on Nelson Johnson, author of the books Boardwalk Empire and the followup, The Northside: African Americans and the Creation of Atlantic City.  The Northside focuses on the contributions of Atlantic City's black citizens to the city's growth and success and Johnson's first book, Boardwalk Empire: The Birth, High Times, and Corruption of Atlantic City, is the basis for the award-winning HBO dramatic series of the same name.

The announcement was made yesterday at the meeting of the College's Board of Trustees.

"We are pleased to confer this degree on a man who has devoted many years to researching the Atlantic City region's history and preserving it for future generations."

—Herman J. Saatkamp, Jr., Stockton President

Nelson Johnson's family has been in Atlantic County before the founding of Atlantic City itself.  A lifelong resident of Hammonton, he practiced law for 30 years and has been active in Atlantic City and Atlantic County civic matters during that time.  He was an attorney for the Atlantic City Planning Board at the time of the approvals for many of the city's casinos; Johnson was inspired to make sense of the city's history and to write an objective account.  The interviews, research and writing involved in his first book spanned nearly 20 years.

The honoree frequently stopped working on Boardwalk Empire to wrestle with how to handle the thorny subject of race in Atlantic City's history.  He persisted, and the result was a chapter "A Plantation by the Sea" that inspired the powerful sequel. Plexus Publishing, Inc. has made A Plantation by the Sea- The Northside available for anyone to read online at TheNorthsideBook.com.

Historian Nelson C. Johnson, author of “Boardwalk Empire,” has a new book called “The Northside: African Americans and the Creation of Atlantic City” (Plexus Publishing, 384 pp. , $24.95), which is a well-received history about the predominately black neighborhoods of Atlantic City. He spoke with Star-Ledger columnist Mark Di Ionno this past week about why the National Museum of African American History and Culture is important to all Americans. Q: Lonnie Bunch, the founding director of the museum, wants exhibits that shows African-American history in keeping with the overall American experience, from the founding of the nation until today. Do you agree with that approach? A: Yes. Without free, forced labor, the infrastructure, population and economy of colonial America would have developed at a crawl. If the slave experience were removed from our nation’s history ... would the critical mass required to contemplate separation from England have existed? I think not. ... Without free labor, the 13 colonies would have been very different. Q: The history of the African-American middle class in the decades before the civil rights movement is somewhat of a lost story, overshadowed by the more dramatic events of the late 1950s and 1960s. Why is this era important? A: This era is important because it was an age of “uplift,” critical to moving past the slave experience. The children and grandchildren of freed slaves had a sense of purpose to their lives like few people in our history. From circa 1880 through 1960, by and large, African-Americans had a “civic mind,” which understood the connectedness of their existence and a “sense of urgency” that propelled their advancement through education.

Before it was too late...

When Nelson Johnson finally finished "The Northside," his in-depth history of Atlantic City's black community, relief washed over him.

Not the type of relief a writer feels when meeting a deadline, nor the relief one feels when an exhaustive process is finally finished. For Johnson, author of the acclaimed "Boardwalk Empire," it was as though he had beaten death. Not his own, but the mortal timeline of some of his books' key contributors.

"All of the key people that helped me with Boardwalk Empire are dead," Johnson said before launching into a list of the deceased. "So, when Sid Trusty died, I said, ‘Oh no, not again.'"

Trusty, a native of the Northside and unofficial historian of the city's black community, convinced Johnson to write the book, insisting that the story had to be told, and told accurately.

Johnson said he wrote the book for people such as Trusty, to give them what they deserved.

He had originally tried to summarize the Atlantic City black community's history in "Plantation by the Sea," a chapter of his bestselling book-turned-television-series "Boardwalk Empire."

BOARDWALK EMPIRE by Nelson Johnson Ebury Press, 312pp, £16.99 Review by Lee Randall

The Scotsman - Looking for two words to sum up Atlantic City, New Jersey? They'd ave to be "sea" and "sin," especially when describing its heyday in the first half of the 20th century. Not only were normal rules of decorum suspended, even Federal law didn't take hold: Prohibition never happened there. The economy was dependent on tourism, so the city pandered to visitors, and as one long-time resident said: "If the people who came to town had wanted Bible readings, we'd have given 'em that. But nobody ever asked for Bible readings. They wanted booze, broads, and gambling, so that's what we gave 'em." As a lawyer for Atlantic City's planning board in the 1980s, when applications for many of the casinos were being approved, Nelson Johnson - now a Superior Court Judge - grew fascinated by the resort's complicated history. He spent 20 years fact-finding and interviewing eye-witnesses, a task he describes as "a race against death". Many key sources were elderly and initially reticent. He was persistent, and the pay-off, Boardwalk Empire, benefits from the wealth of detail he unearthed or scrupulously verified. Johnson moves with a reasonable degree of grace between novelistic scenes and straightforward factual reportage. Many of these facts are so eye-popping that they require no further embellishment.