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For the Sins of My Father: A Mafia Killer, His Son, and the Legacy of a Mob Life

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Overview

A suspenseful, emotionally charged real-life Sopranos: The son of New York's most notorious Mafia killer reveals the conflicted life he led being raised by a cold-blooded murderer, who was also a devoted family man, and the wrenching legacy of Mafia family life.Al DeMeo will never forget the day in 1992 when a coworker, a fellow trader at the New York Stock Exchange, taunted him with a copy of the hot new book Murder Machine, chronicling the horrific criminal life of DeMeo's father, Roy, the head of the most deadly gang in organized crime. The moment sent DeMeo into a psychological tailspin: How could he have spent his life looking up to, and loving, a vicious killer For the Sins of My Father recounts the chilling rise and fall of the man who led the Gambino family's most fearsome killers and thieves, through the eyes of a son who had never known any other kind of life. Coming of age in an opulent Long Island house where money is abundant but its source is unclear, Al becomes Roy's confidant, sent to call in loans at age fourteen and gradually coming to understand his father's job description--loan shark, car thief, porn purveyor and, above all, murderer.

Editorial Reviews

While it's understandable that the publisher compares this memoir of life in a Mob family to The Sopranos, the book stands firmly on its own as one of the most searing volumes ever written about the Mob. (Mafia cognoscenti will recognize the DeMeo name, for the author' s father, Roy, gunned down by fellow mobsters in 1982, has in recent years gained a reputation as one of the most ruthless members of the Gambino family, responsible for dozens of killings.) DeMeo' s coauthor, Ross (In the Company of Men), probably deserves credit for the fluid, dark-hued prose that surges throughout the narrative, but what really sets this book apart, in addition to its brutal honesty, is its unique perspective: that of a child drawn into a macho world of fear and violence, money and power. Before Albert was a teen, he had become the principal confidant of his father, who was a soldier and then a made man with the Gambinos, picking up payoffs, familiar with wise guys and guns; Albert' s involvement was such that only a few years later he practiced, with his dad, at what angle he would shoot Roy when and if Roy needed to fake his own death. There' s the familiar other side of Mob life here, too, the wide circle of eccentric acquaintances and the robust celebrations centered around a nuclear family in which mom and kids (other than Albert) floated unaware of the crimes of father and son; but what eats through this book like acid is the horror, mixed with undying love and loyalty, that Albert feels as over the years he learns just what his father did for money a horror that as an adult would send the author into a mental hospital but which he has now assimilated sufficiently to write this painful, intense, unforgettable memoir. (Aug. 20) Forecast: With the success of HBO's The Sopranos, which will begin airing again September 15, plus the recent death of Gambino head John Gotti, expect much interest in, and many sales for, this electrifying title. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information. -- PUBLISHERS WEEKLY.

Author Information

Bio of Albert DeMeo

Born in Brooklyn and Long Island,ALBERT DEMEO lives in suburban New York.

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Additional Info

Imprint

Broadway

Filesize

1.67 MB

Number of Pages

288

eBook ISBN

9780767911290

Excerpt from: For the Sins of My Father by Albert DeMeo

Prologue
CHARON'S CROSSING

I come to lead you to the other shore, Into eternal dark, into fire and ice.

--DANTE, The Inferno

So far everything had gone according to plan. Each afternoon for the last few weeks, I had ridden my bicycle past the surveillance vehicles in front of our house. A mile or two later I had stopped at various neighborhood hangouts for a soda or a snack, wound through the familiar Massapequa streets, and then disappeared onto the bike trails that weave through the green woods along the Sound. Just a local thirteen-year-old on a bike. The trails were too narrow for a car to follow. My only company was other bicyclists and the occasional jogger.

Every day my route varied, and every day I emerged from the woods in a different location to stand vigil beside a different neighborhood pay phone. That afternoon the call had finally come. I was relieved to be taking action at last.

I had told my mother that I would be spending a few days with Dad. She knew he was away on business, had been for over a month. More than that, she neither knew nor wanted to know. It was safer that way -- safer for our family, safer for her sanity. She requested no details, and I offered none. She had long ago made peace with the fact that as the only son, I was the man of the family in my father's absence. I came and went as I chose. No questions asked.