LINES I WISH I’D WRITTEN
On the Glut of Mafioso-in-the-Family Memoirs
Are too many mob relatives airing the blood-stained laundry?
This is the first in a series of brief quotations from books, articles, and other media — all based on my personal tastes and interests — that will appear frequently on Lit Life. If you enjoy them, you might also want to follow the longer pieces I post at @janiceharayda.
“Do we really need another Mafioso-in-the-family memoir? I mean, seriously, we’ve had books that could be called Mafia Wife, Mafia Dad, Mafia Son, Mafia Stepdaughter, Mafia Uncle, Mafia Dachshund, Mafia Goldfish — okay, well, I made up a couple of those, but you get the point. When Al Capone’s purported grandson publishes a memoir, and he has, I think it’s safe to say we’ve reached saturation.
“Which is why I was surprised how thoroughly I enjoyed Russell Shorto’s Smalltime: A Story of My Family and the Mob. Even more so once I realized a more accurate subtitle for the book would be Searching for Grandpa: Second-in-Command of the Johnstown (Pa.) Mob. In other words, this is not Mafia history that will send Geraldo Rivera scrambling to open a Shorto family safe anytime soon.
“And that, oddly, is part of the book’s charm.”
Byran Burrough’s lead for his Wall Street Journal review of Russell Shorto’s Smalltime: My Family and the Mob (Norton, 2021).
