Jimmy BreslinRecensioni

I need to go wash my hair.

The first time I ever heard the term "sandhog," was when I read about workmen on the Brooklyn bridge. I was impressed with a job that looks horrifying, and it's probably much more so in reality. In this case, sand hogs are creating tunnels that will carry water to the billions of people that live in the New York City area. I say billions because it's an unthinkable amount of people living there.

The best parts of this book were accidents that happened because of the dangerous nature of this job.

It was a love-hate relationship with this book. The wife of the protagonist, Dolores, was an admirable character. She reminded me so much of myself when I was younger and I married someone who took my innocence, my youth, my heart, and gave back nothing. I hated the character of the protagonist, "Ownie," whose real name was owen. He was an alcoholic for whom the bottle meant more than anything: more than his marriage, more than his child. Willing to throw away what was so meaningful, to prove that no woman would tell him what to do. It was terribly triggering for me, as so many books are. I wish so much I could reach through the pages and slap the crap out of the son of a b.

Here's the first of the accidents that were so thrilling:
".. when at work one day, deep in the tunnel under the dam, Morrison's friend, Jerry barry, who was here 3 months from donegal, turned off his acetylene torch at the tip but left the tank open. Lit up like he deserved a good smoke for himself. Lit up in a tight chamber far under a reservoir. Barry blew straight up through the roof and into the water. Later, standing on the gravel shore, somebody spotted Barry out in the reservoir. The head was bobbing along, the face looking up, with sometimes no water covering the face at all, looking up at the sky as the water swept it toward the gate in the dam that led to the tunnel in the city. Somebody handed Morrison a pole with a small net on it and said, 'well, this is about all you'll need to fish Barry out of the water.' It was. When Morrison picked it up in the net, the man rowing the boat looked at the head in the net and said, 'I guess he sure left a sour taste in the drinking water.' "

Here's an accident that happened to Owen Morrison's ancestor, Jimmy Morrison. It was a pretty good accident, too:
" A year later, working in High Bridge, Jimmy Morrison and three others got on a lift that dropped like a flower pot off a windowsill, dropped down a 900 ft shaft with the four men on it trying to scream out but unable to make a sound. Jimmy was on his hands and knees and forcing an Act of Contrition through his Frozen mind when the elevator cable caught and the elevator stopped at once. The four were thrown against the steel sides of the shaft with bones breaking and the first cries coming from them. Then the lift broke Free again and dropped the last 50 ft to the bottom. It splintered and the four men were pulled out and had to remain in the shaft for several hours until a new lift was fashioned and sent down to them. One of the four, Gene Cooney, went berserk and, when healed, had to be put away. The other two left sandhog work. Jimmy Morrison, with fractured vertebrae, was in a ward in Bronx general hospital for 6 months."

Throughout the book, mentions are made of a woman named cindy. Cindy is a sex worker, though to her friends it's more like friends with benefits. What I disliked immensely was the author's attitude toward her, as if she's something dirty and smelly, instead of directing it back to the men that make the bad smells and the dirt.
"in the middle of the night or the start of the morning, or whenever it was, he sat on a wicker hamper in the bathroom of Fat's apartment. He knew it was Fat's apartment and he knew his throat throbbed. She stepped out of the shower and stood directly in front of him with the towel held up under her chin.

Breslin did a first-rate job researching this book. Good for him for exposing crooked politicians and builders in New York, who use broke Mexicans in their illegal get-richer schemes. I felt in a rage most of the time I was reading this. I'll miss you, Jimmy Breslin.

The Good Rat, by Jimmy Breslin. A writer of some excellent fiction, Breslin now gives truth to "stranger than fiction" and does it with the same panache he displays so well in his fiction. Good guys and bad guys alike stand revealed in all their naked true selves. I wonder he is still alive considering the characters he investigated/wrote about, and no punches pulled. The tension is there as the deadly deeds are revealed by the perpetrators. Every revelation puts the witness in danger, but the revelations go on. The story revolves around an imprisoned man who operated inside and outside the law, but he testifies honestly with, seemingly no reprisals. You got'ta wonder. A quick read, very entertaining. A great look at the decline (?) of organized crime.

Desmitificación del mundo de la mafia con consideraciones sobre la difícil estructura social de los Estados Unidos.

3.5 stars. Interesting read about Watergate, impeachment, and ultimately, Nixon’s resignation. As the title of this book suggests, the story is written from the perspective of one who wanted Nixon impeached and removed from office. While biased in that respect, it has lots of interesting anecdotes and information about the players who were working on impeachment (with the legendary Speaker of the House, Tip O’Neill playing a starring role, as Breslin was “embedded” with O’Neill for much of this time), as well as those who were involved in other ways (like Gerald Ford).

That perspective and the anecdotes make the book worth the read. Where the book fell a little flat for me was the way some of the dialogue was presented without sufficient context. At times, it went from one conversation to the next without much setup or segue. As a result, there were several instances where I felt more like I was jumping between newspaper articles (a forum that Breslin has lots of experience with; he had a true gift for his work there). Had there been a bit more context and setup, this book would have really shined. That said, its still a well-written and interesting read for those interested in this aspect of American history. Would give this 3.5 stars if Goodreads allowed half stars.

Write what you know. Whoever it was that first said those words of wisdom, must have said them loud and clear to Jimmy Breslin. Better still, it was probably Breslin that announced–in his unmistakable Queens accent–this most excellent advice to any and all writers that would listen.
Table Money is a nonpareil example of this 'write what you know' craftsmanship in all of its glory.
The 1970s, Viet Nam war issues, good cops, bad cops, drinking problems, mob guys, societal / neighborhood expectations, religious insanity, the understood roles of men and women, ugly racism, and the importance of always having money on the table. A terrific novel from someone who brilliantly wrote volumes about the city and the people and the neighborhoods he knew so very well.

not my cup of tea. copping writing style½

For such a short and easy-to-read book, I found it very difficult to finish this thing.

Jimmy Breslin is known for his investigative reporting. Apparently his fiction has some fans, too. I don't understand it, though.

He calls this one "a fable". I guess that's a start. The story features a priest named Cosgrove who, after spending time in Africa, is sent to New York City to spread the word about sex. Or at least that's how Cosgrove interprets his mission. He brings along a large African native named "Great Big", because that's what he is.

Cosgrove runs into an array of persons who are subsisting on public money. They are not having a great time of it, and find it necessary to supplement their incomes whatever way they can. Cosgrove's primary interest is sex, and his attitude about poverty is that it will always exist so he doesn't exactly care. He tries to preach about sex to whoever will listen, and mainly gets blank stares. It is hard to care about the church's rules about sex when one is looking for a meal, or a home.

Over time Cosgrove gets involved with prostitutes, drug-runners, some kind of mafia, mostly without fully appreciating what he's doing. Meanwhile, Great Big is satisfying his huge hunger any way he can, and when that involves some unsavory moves Cosgrove excuses them. Hunger overrides other concerns.

The whole is written in a choppy style that I found awkward. There is a lot of jumping from one scene to another, without real explanation. Perhaps it would have been better to write this as a play, if at all. Through his machinations with the government offices, Cosgrove learns of the absurdities in the social services systems. This, I believe, is the main point of the book. I get it. I would have rather read an article about this subject, or a nonfiction book even.

Breslin is a good journalist. I think he should stick to nonfiction.

an Irish priest, an African cannibal, NY street kids, Welfare and Mafia

Jimmy Breslin’s Can’t Anybody Here Play This Game? is a great baseball book, hilariously recounting the horrendous first year of the New York Mets, the 1962 season in which the team lost an incredible 120 games, while winning only 40. For the best effect, you need to conjure up Breslin’s distinctive cadence and thick New Yawk accent as you’re reading it.

Full of anecdotes and Breslin’s fine wit, and spooled out in his conversational style, this is a really quick, really fun read: tales of their colorful manager Casey Stengel; team owner Joan Payson; General Manager George Weiss; the scheming National League brass; the hapless first baseman Marv Throneberry, the perfect embodiment of the team; the other woeful castoff players selected in the expansion draft; the growing “new breed” of die-hard fans; and, by way of prologue, the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants, who left town after the 1957 season, paving the way for the birth of the Mets and the return of National League Baseball to New York. The chronicling of the Mets special brand of ineptitude that year is, well, amazin’.

The book ends with a story about Gil Hodges, who was then at the tail end of a great career. It’s a reflective story about the passage of time, and how growing old just kind of sneaks up on you. That’s classic Breslin, making you think about such things as you lay the book down.

THE GANG THAT COULDN’T SHOOT STRAIGHT by Jimmy Breslin is one of my all-time favorite reads. I love Breslin’s style - humorous, satirical, ‘pull no punches’ writing. I reread this title as a memoriam to Breslin who died in March, 2017. He was a hard-hitting journalist and a lovely author. He won a Pulitzer Prize for Commentary in 1986 “for columns which consistently champion ordinary citizens”.
You will chuckle at every page reading about Kid Sally Palumbo and his ‘gang’ of incompetents.
The funniest bit (for me) was the lion in the basement!
THE GANG THAT COULDN’T SHOOT STRAIGHT was published in 1970. One of his first titles was published in 1963 - CAN’T ANYBODY HERE PLAY THE GAME? - his commentary on the New York Mets. A great book, also.
RIP Jimmy Breslin

Dedicated to the 922,530 brave souls who paid their way into the Polo Grounds in 1962. Never has so much misery loved so much company.

Right off the bat I knew I was in good hands with Mr. Breslin, as he recounts the historical ineptitude of the New York Mets in 1962, their first year of existence in the National League. The '62 Mets set a record for futility, losing 120 of the 160 games they played, that still stands. Of course, any expansion team is bound to struggle at first, but Breslin recounts — between one-liners — all the ways that the National League and its owners put their thumb on the scale to make sure the Mets were worse than bad. Greedy owners and collusion have always been with us in baseball, it seems.

I was born and spent the first 8 years of my life on Long Island (or Lawn Guyland, as the local accent renders it), so I came by my Mets fandom honestly, even though they are two years older than I am. I can still rattle off many names of players from the era, from Ed Kranepool (my favorite) to Marv Throneberry to Gil Hodges. They were terrible, but they were ours:

You see, the Mets are losers, just like nearly everybody else in life. This is a team for the cab driver who gets held up and the guy who loses out on a promotion because he didn't maneuver himself to lunch with the boss enough. It is the team for every guy who has to get out of bed in the morning and go to work for short money on a job he does not like. And it is the team for every woman who looks up ten years later and sees her husband eating dinner in a T-shirt and wonders how the hell she ever let this guy talk her into getting married.

In some ways, reading Jimmy Breslin on baseball is a lot like reading Roger Angell, another favorite of mine. Both have a keen eye and a gift for description that gives you a perfect picture. But while the writing of Angell (an editor at The New Yorker) wears a bespoke three-piece suit, Breslin's writing does its best work in shirtsleeves, with the collar unbuttoned and the tail half untucked.

(Congressman) Keating brought with him all the attributes of a great campaigner. An excellent right hand, for one thing. This is a man who can shake hands with a polar bear and the bear is going to let out the first yelp.

(William) Shea has dark hair, blue eyes, and the square jaw of a guy who would know how to punch back.

I don't know if Breslin ever wrote a sequel to Can't Anybody Here Play This Game? to detail the Mets' triumph in the 1969 World Series (just seven seasons removed from the utter haplessness he chronicles here. Imagine!). On the other hand, maybe it's better to quite while you're behind. Losers are a lot more interesting than winners.

Pretty funny in places. Light fluffy entertainment.

Branch Rickey by Jimmy Breslin
147 pages

★ (the rarely seen one star from me)

Brach Rickey is best known for being the first man to break the color-barrier in Major League Baseball by signing Jackie Robinson to the Dodgers. But besides that, he was the innovator of introducing many things that are still used within the sport today such as batting helmets, batting cages, sabermetrics, and “farming” aka minor league baseball teams (note: do not be confused that he was the inventor of these things, he just was the one to start implementing them).

I don’t know how I got through this book. Branch Rickey contributed so much to baseball and yet so much is missed in this book. I know it’s a short book (in comparison to some of his biographies which are over 700 pages) but I think the author could have gotten in a lot of important details if he didn’t dedicate PAGES to word-by-word testimonies on a minor situation Robinson was in when he was younger (more specifically statements from many whites when Robinson refused to move to the back of a bus. I realize it may be important to know their reaction but the author went overboard in 10 pages worth of statements). He probably could have accomplished more detail on Rickey (you know...who the book is about) if the author didn’t focus on himself so much – for instance when he talks about Rickey’s smoking habit but then goes into his own story on how he used to smoke and his reasons for quitting the habit. Really Mr. Author? I don’t care. The author also goes back and forth on past and present tense when writing the book which was annoying and unnecessary, in my opinon. The author seems to focus on Jackie Robinson but not so much on his interaction with Branch Rickey. If I were to hand you this book and told you to read it without knowing the title, I think one would easily be confused what this book is actually about. I’m not into sports but I can’t blame that for the reason for my huge distaste in this book. I wanted to give up on this book so badly but stuck with it. It’s one redeeming quality? It was short.

I celebrated the beginning of the 2015 baseball season by pulling this wonderful, short, book down off my shelf, where it had been waiting patiently for my attention for many years. This is Breslin's look at the very first season of the New York Mets. Those 1962 Mets set a record for futility, losing 120 of their 162 games. But in the process, they created a sensation, becoming much beloved in New York City, which had been starved for National League baseball since the Giants and Dodgers had left for California in 1957. Breslin has a breezy, Runyonesque writing style, and since the book was written and published in 1963, before the team even began their second season, it really is a time-piece.

While Breslin chronicles in detail the ways in which the 1962 Mets were terrible, describing many of the bonehead plays they pulled off during the year, he also gets inside the phenomenon they created on the way to their wild popularity. Breslin makes a believable case that the team came to represent an era that New Yorkers instinctually felt was fading in the city, a time of community and fun. He decries the ways in which the coming of television has kept people inside and away from smaller events like sandlot ballgames. So we get, in this book, not just a picture of the Mets, but one writer's look at New York in the early 60s, and earlier. For example, there is the following passage that comes up as Breslin is describing Joan Payson, the Mets' first owner, about a group of fans of those departed New York Giants:

"{Payson} was talking about the late Jack White, a comedian who subsisted on brandy and ran a saloon called the 18 Club. White was considered the town's number one Giant fan. It was natural that he considered Joan Payson a pal. The 18 Club is no more, and the only reminders of it are Pat Harrington, the great old comic, and Jackie Gleason, who was a third-stringer in the 18 Club lineup. When the 18 was operating, waiters would spit ice cubes at customers, and White either was loaded or was out on the floor telling unprintable stories. A linescore of the day's Giant game was always hung in front of the bandstand. But only if they won. The "No Game" sign went out after a loss. It was Mrs. Payson's idea of a helluva night joint.

Every afternoon when the Giants were at home, a mob from the 18 Club, White, Harrington, bartenders, waiters, a big singer named Hazel McNulty and the inevitable group of loan sharks would sit in the upper tier in left field, open shirt collars, lean back and get the sun. . . . "

Breslin also spends a lot of time quoting and describing the great and colorful Casey Stengel and providing snapshot profiles of some of those original Mets. He tries to understand what it must have been like to be a player on that team, often through the eyes of the players themselves, and tells us what it was like to root for them.

I never knew about Rickey's incredible eye for baseball talent. He could have a wing of the hall of fame just for his players. Jackie Robinson, who I believe was the best player as well as the best man to ever enter the baseball diamond, understandably is the brightest star in constellation created by Branch Rickey, but it also included Dizzy Dean, Roy Campanella, and Roberto Clemente to name a few. Many of the men Mr. Rickey put on the field shown as brightly off the field for their care and compassion, as their talent did on the field.

Breslin drips Brooklyn in his story telling, and seems truly astonished at Mr. Rickey's character as possibly only a hardened, cynical street kid can be. I was raised in a southern home, a football home,a home where we did not care if another baseball ever crossed the sky. Through Branch Rickey Jimmy Breslin makes obvious to even a football fan that a baseball story is worth the hearing.

Underwhelming. There's a good story to be told about the disastrous first year of the New York Mets -- several good stories, probably -- but this isn't it. Since Jimmy Breslin wrote this one before the 1963 season even started, he was probably still too close to the story, and the lack of perspective hurts the book. Indeed, there barely seems to be enough material here to make a book out of: the now-famous "yo la tengo" incident isn't even mentioned. A few personalities do come through, like Casey Stengel, Joan Payson, the team's first owner, and maybe even poor, cursed Marvin Thorneberry, as does Breslin's obvious love of baseball. Still, he spends a lot of time in a nostalgic mode, complaining about how big money has changed the game for the worse. Of course, this was decades before Alex Rodriguez got a contract that might have allowed him to purchase one of baseball's smaller franchises, and I sort of wonder what he makes of it now. Also, I was expecting something straightforward and newspaper-ish, but Breslin's prose, while appropriately masculine, often seems curiously padded and stagey. I picked this one up to get myself mentally prepared for baseball season, and I suppose it did its job, but I can't really recommend it. Fans of stories involving athletic calamities and lovable losers are advised to search elsewhere.

Evidently Breslin was asked to write a Penguin Biography, then allowed to select his subject. I can understand that, but it seems an odd way to edit a series.

This is an odd book. It's more a "Scenes from a Life" than a proper biography, and it largely concentrates on Rickey's efforts to integrate baseball and his relationship with Jackie Robinson. There's too little about Rickey's other major impacts on the game, as the development of the minor league farm system is only lightly touched and Rickey's involvement in the Continental League is only barely mentioned. Nor is there any serious discussion of the way Rickey actually assembled and administered baseball teams.

Frankly, I was hoping for something with more substance. That said, this book's well-written, shows evidence of serious research, and tells the story Breslin wanted to share quite well. Worth reading, but incomplete.



This review has also been published on a dabbler's journal.


I guess I get Jimmy Breslin. It's the diction, the cadence and the shaggy wandering narrative style. But he's so parochial. Aside from someone who is really into Mafia history or who lived in New York during these trials, I doubt many people could stick with this all the way through. Too many characters, too much rambling. Too much reliance on court transcripts without context.

Couldn't help thinking that Mike Royko would have a better feel for a readership beyond his city. Funny thing: this is a story about the end of the Italian mafia, the last of the wise guys, the demise of which was being err celebrated or immortalized with the Sopranos even as Breslin was writing. As he notes, even movies like Godfather were marking the end of an era.

Yet Breslin doesn't pick up on the popular interest to make some compares and contrasts. How do some of the real characters and organizations resemble the fictional ones? You sure don't root for any of these low-lifes that Breslin briefly sketches. There's one oblique remark about Pacino backing out of the making of The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight at the same time that Breslin met the young De Niro but that about covers it.

Breslin seems to think that the mafia--organized crime--equals the Italian mafia. But the Chinese mafia has probably been bigger for a long time in the US--in the sense of the number of people being trafficked and the money and drugs flowing through. Gambling, loansharking. As far as global links too. Murder? I don't know. Then of course there must be a lot of Latin American gangs as well.

In short: very New York.½

1900-1950 biograPHY OF baseball owner and manager, during the integration of Blacks into American Baseball, discusses predjudices of newspapers owners, players and political conflicts.

Hugely enjoyable, once you accept that everyone is getting what they deserve. I read this once, thirty years ago, and I can still remember Breslin's best lines.

" The two men sat across from each other at Joe's Restaurant. Breaking salt rolls into crumbs, Rickey immediately told Barber, "Mrs. Rickey and my family say I'm too old at sixty-four, and my health is not up to it. They say I've gone through enough baseball and [taken enough] from the newspapers. That every hand is baseball will be against me. But I'm, going to do it."

"He looked straight into my eyes," remembered [Red] Barber, fixing my attention."

Rickey said, "I'm going to bring a Negro to the Brooklyn Dodgers."
Barber remembered Branch Rickey speaking slowly as he said it. "I'm going to bring a Negro to the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Barber sat straight and silent.

"I don't know who he is," continued Rickey, "or where he is, but he is coming.""

Whatever one may think of the controversial Jimmy Breslin, it's difficult to deny that he's a great writer, and due to his long career and many connections to the sports world and New York in general, he was the perfect choice to write this book on Branch Rickey for the Penguin Lives series. Although he, himself, met Rickey only once, Breslin read extensively about him, and interviewed many people who still remembered the man who brought Jackie Robinson, the first African American, player into Major League Baseball.

What little I knew about Rickey came from watching Ken Burns' documentary, Baseball, and from reading books about Jackie Robinson; but I always wanted to know more about man who put the wheels of integration in motion. What motivated Rickey? Altruism? Money? Religion? Baseball?
It was all of these, and yet it was none. In the simplest explanation, it was Rickey's sense of fairness that drove him to integrate Major League Baseball. That he was the manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers gave him the opportunity to make his dream of equality take root in the game of baseball. That he was a religious man, made him see the righteousness of his cause and allowed him to bring other like-minded individuals into the fold. When faced with those who were neither fair nor religious, Rickey appealed to their sense of business acumen. These talented young African Americans were the future of baseball. He saw it as a good financial investment (although it was devastating to the Negro Leagues), and wasn't afraid to sell the concept on its business merits, and make money in the process, too. In short, he was a clever, fair, and honest man with a dream of racial equality. It took him years of planning and the ideal choice of Jackie Robinson to make it happen, but Branch Rickey, can be credited with the integration of Major League Baseball. Not bad for a poor boy "from the hills and swamps of Southern Ohio."

Told in a largely anecdotal style, Branch Rickey is a short, fascinating read for baseball and history fans, regaling the reader with little-known stories of baseball lore. At one point, the always opinionated Breslin (once a heavy drinker) inserts his own theory on alocohol, smoking, and cancer, opposing Rickey's ardent lifetime antipathy towards liquor. This is the one digression that detracts from the story, which otherwise reads like an old friend telling well-worn family lore. (perhaps old friends may be forgiven a digression or two)

And with long-practiced ease, Breslin artfully weaves the story of Branch Rickey into the context of today, pulling the ends of the story together in the middle, with people cheering the election of Barack Obama from their local polling place - Jackie Robinson High School. How fitting.

I love baseball.

This is an adult nonfiction title, but get your glasses out, because its font is better suited for much younger eyes! (Centennial LT Std 45 Light, if you're interested)

www.shelf-employed.blogspot.com

Interesting book about Branch Rickey, the man who integrated baseball.

Can't Anybody Here Play This Game? by Jimmy Breslin. 124 pages, non-fiction (and proof that truth can, indeed, be stranger than fiction!)

In 1962, the baseball world was taken by storm by the unique phenomenon that was the first year of New York Mets baseball. (When I say "storm," think of a DISASTER.) The 1962 Mets set a whole new standard of ineptitude for Major League Baseball. They were also, almost certainly, the most beloved losing team in MLB history -- perhaps in all of pro sports.

This is Jimmy Breslin's classic baseball book, written between the 1962 and 1963 seasons, and re-issued in 1982 as part of the Penguin Sports Library (the edition I own). It is laugh-out-loud funny at times as Breslin describes (in his inimitable style) the improbable progress of games on the field (think of Keystone Cops playing baseball), and shares off-the-field comments by those close to the team and ordinary fans. A two-page appendix lists the dubious records which the Mets set in their rookie season as a team.

However, this book is also thought-provoking. At times, it is clear that it was written in a totally different era. Breslin's description of the wages of those laborers constructing Shea Stadium (then in progress) suggested great expense to readers at the time -- but it is all well below minimum wage for workers today. But much of the commentary sounds familiar to today's fan, as Breslin mourns the fall of "sport" and the rise of "business" in the major leagues. It was his contention that the Mets were beloved in 1962 because of, not in spite of, their shortcomings. In an era when pro athletes were already becoming too "perfect," too "professional," these were ballplayers to whom fans could relate.

One statement, however, has perhaps proved false, if my choice to re-read this book is any indication:
"Someday, when George Weiss's cold, automatic methods of running an organization turn the team into just another boring winner, everything happening now probably will be forgotten."

On the contrary, it was the memory of the 1962 Mets that made the world-champion 1969 Mets such a miracle for fans. And I do believe the memory still lingers on today.

This book is still a fun read; it's a blast from the past, well written, with something to say that's still worthwhile.

A surprisingly entertaining book considering the topic. Jimmy Breslin has built a story of the Mafia old and current around the court case against two extremely “dirty” cops in the NYPD. Burt Kaplan, working for the Mafia for decades, is the witness; now in his 70s and tired of prison life, he has turned “rat”. Kaplan is, from the book cover in this version “one of the most devastating turncoats of all time”. The court transcripts have a certain fascination which give great insight into the minds of the Mafia. Everything is run like a business, as is fairly well-known, but to hear it in the words of Kaplan, the descriptions of murder, making people disappear, comes across as just a day in the office. He tells everything straight as if describing ordering a meal to be delivered, or shipping a parcel out. Kaplan’s “voice” and Breslin’s style are what make the story so entertaining.

Breslin fills in background between sessions of the transcript with what appears to be the results of interviews through the years. Raised in the same location as the Families, he knew them personally and by reputation. This is what makes the story. He knows what he is talking about and has a wonderful flow between the transcripts and the “normal” lives of the people referred to. He gives us perhaps the most accurate picture of the history from the 1950s to the present of the “families” including their movement from Brooklyn to Staten Island, and on into the final crumbling days of the Dons. I was pleasantly surprised by this book, I thought it would be a lot of blood and guts described in great detail and do not usually read books to do with the Mafia. This book is so unexpected, I’m inclined to read Breslin’s other books on the same topics. I would recommend this book for it’s courtroom interest, it’s historical fact, and it’s entertainment value. Very good.