Joey

Having read two other books on gangster Joey Gallo I have to say I wasn't thrilled with this one. Several of the chapters are on other family members. Also included is a lot of what life is like in prison which I suppose is appropriate since Joey Gallo spent most of the decade of the 1960s in various New York prisons. I notice that this look, like others, state that Joey Gallo was murdered by Sonny Pinto and two brothers named Ben and Cisco. In the book entitled "I Heard You Paint Houses" Frank Sheeran claims he was the lone shooter in killing Joey Gallo. I would think others in attendance with Gallo during those early morning hours in Umberto's Clam House would be able to clear up as to how many shooters there were. Also, I realize a book of this type is going to include profanities but I thought it was overdone in this book. I will donate this book to our public library.

Excellent book about the 60'sfearless gangster Crazy Joey Gallo. If you are interested in books on the mobsters life then this is one you should have in your library.http://www.amazon.com/Starlight-Club-Book-ebook/dp/B0098L3LQW/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1447808028&sr=1-1&keywords=the+starlight+club

Good read, if your looking to find out more about Crazy Joe Gallo this book is a good place to start. Not much material out there on him I would suggest picking a copy up while you still can. Very good read.

This is how a biography of a mobster should be written. Scrupulously researched with in-depth interviews of people around him. Doesn't caricature him, or make excuses for the guy. The publisher should reissue this book.

This book describes the life and death of Joey Gallo in a way that will hold the interest of everyone who want to understand the Realities of Mafia Life. a Great Read. Larry T.

Good shape

Thanks in part to the Sopranos, there's been a resurgence of interest in organized crime and the Mafia, but the pedestrian truth is that mobsters aren't all that interesting a breed. One need only read a transcript of their surreptitiously recorded conversations, whether it's Sam the Plumber DeCavalcante discussing how to rig a card game with his associates, or John Gotti threatening to decapitate an underling, to recognize that these aren't bright and noble Robin Hoods, but rather the most ruthless and unscrupulous representatives of unbridled American capitalism, imperialists of the most pernicious kind. Which is why Goddard's book "Joey" continues to exert an enduring fascination. Without doubt, Joey Gallo was one of America's most interesting and colorful mobsters, a psychopathic chameleon, a predator who was able to transcend the image of brutal thug even as he embraced its grim reality, a fact which people as diverse as Robert Kennedy and Jimmy Breslin recognized. Highly intelligent, poetic, a man who could quote Sartre and Camus, Gallo was also a feral man who could commit rape, inflict torture on those he attempted to extort money from, methodically murder some of the most dangerous and feared men in New York, and use the psychology of terror to dominate both those he loved and hated. Alternately humorous and terrifying, his pre-dawn operatic death on the streets outside Umberto's Clam House, while messier than he might have envisioned, was probably the precise kind of finale he desired- a bullet-ridden Mafia cowboy dying with his boots on. Richard Widmark in "Kiss of Death" (Gallo's favorite childhood movie) couldn't have done it better.Goddard is not immune to the lure of Gallo's personality, but he stays above the sort of mythology that Bob Dylan indulged in when writing a song devoted to Gallo. Dylan's Gallo was a combination of Christ and Cagney. Goddard presents Gallo in all his aspects, examining his contradictions and complexity, his various roles from ferocious Mafia killer to radical prison inmate to the witty and articulate star of Sutton Place parties. Not only was he able to interview Gallo before his death, he was also able to extensively interview Gallo's ex-wife, his daughter, and those who were his friends and foes during his turbulent, incandescent lifetime. This makes for a richly textured portrait of a personality both monstrous and endearing, charismatic and chilling. In short, Goddard's book is still the best biography of an underworld figure that you're liable to read.

Excellent, first-rate biography of the mobster whom the press called "Crazy Joe" Gallo (no one else did, at least not to his face), who led a bloody insurrection against Mafia family boss Joseph Profaci in the early Sixties, spent more than eight years in various New York State prisons for extortion, and then revolted against Profaci's successor, Joseph Colombo, upon his release in 1971. This is more than a simple recital of a gangster's exploits, although it does cover Gallo's criminal history in sufficient detail. It is an engrossing, in-depth examination of the complexities of the subject's character and how he was perceived by those in his orbit. Augmented by interviews with Gallo's two wives, both his biological daughter and stepdaughter, various non-criminal friends and acquaintances, and Gallo himself, the real Crazy Joe emerges as an intelligent, curious individual whose interest in philosophy and the arts contrasted sharply with the gangster persona which made him such a highly feared individual in the local hoodlum community. By no means does the author attempt to make excuses for Gallo's violent ways, but it becomes clear in these pages that there was more to the man than the the newspaper headlines which sensationalized his bloodletting.