Blood Relation [Bargain Price] [Hardcover]

Eric Konigsberg (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 2005

Growing up in a household as generic as Midwestern Jews get, author Eric Konigsberg always wished there was something different about his family, something exotic and mysterious, even shocking. When he was sent off to boarding school, he learned from an ex-cop security guard that there was: His great-uncle Harold, in prison in upstate New York, was a legendary Mafia enforcer, suspected by the FBI of upwards of twenty murders. Konigsberg had uncovered a shameful, long-hidden family secret. His grandfather, a Jewish Horatio Alger story who had become a respected merchant through honesty and hard work, never spoke of his baby brother. When other relatives could be coaxed into talking about him, he wasn-t -Kayo- Konigsberg, the -smartest hit man- and -toughest Jew- described by cops and associates; he was Uncle Heshy, the loudmouth nogoodnik and smalltime con, long since written off as dead. Intrigued, Konigsberg ignored his family-s protests and arranged a meeting, which inspired the acclaimed New Yorker piece this book is based on. In -Blood Relation,- Konigsberg portrays Harold as a fascinating, paradoxical character: both brutal and winning, a cold-blooded killer and a larger-than-life charmer who taught himself to read as an adult and served as his own lawyer in two major trials, to riotous effect.

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Journalist Konigsberg embarks on a lengthy odyssey when he discovers, by chance, a dark secret that has haunted his respectable Midwestern Jewish family: his great-uncle has spent most of the past four decades in jail for a series of brutal crimes. Great-uncle Heshy "Kayo" Konigsberg eventually calls the author from prison (he wants to fictionalize his life) and sets in motion a series of bizarre visits during which the criminal attempts to manipulate the younger man's sympathies. Despite the author's clear-eyed awareness of his relative's misdeeds, which include vicious gangland murders that will remind many of the career of Sammy "The Bull" Gravano, he has a hard time staying away from the prison. Though "nasty, brutish, and short-tempered," Kayo is also oddly "ingratiating." But while Konigsberg succeeds at introducing touches of humor and deftly brings his family members to life, too much remains cryptic—particularly what led Kayo to his career path—to make the narrative fully satisfying. The author's determination to continue his quest becomes even more puzzling when Kayo's reaction to his planned piece for the New Yorker leads him to fear for his life. Nonetheless, this debut, with its atypical perspective on organized crime, will intrigue many readers.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

In 1985, while writing an article for his school newspaper, the author learned something extraordinary. His granduncle, his grandfather's brother, was an infamous criminal. Harold "Kayo" Konigsberg was in prison for murder, and, as a Mob hit man, he was suspected of committing as many as 20 murders for hire. So began a quest to learn all about the relative he never knew he had and about the family who had disowned its black sheep. There are two Kayo Konigsbergs in this book: the young, tough, hardened criminal the author learned about from interviews and historical records, and the elderly man who was like "an apparition of Harold Konigsberg," whom the author got to know during his prison visits. True-crime memoirs are a dime a dozen, but this one is different: a chronicle of criminal behavior, yes, but also a moving story of coming to terms with one's roots. David Pitt
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• ISBN-10: 0060099046
• ASIN: B000GG4FRC
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,110,440 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent read, October 11, 2005

By 

J. Kaufman (Boston, MA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Blood Relation (Hardcover)

An excellent read that satisfies on several levels. Perhaps foremost as a close psychological profile of an incredibly charming and manipulative sociopath who was in his heyday among the top hit men for the Mob. But also as a family memoir, a story of attempting to get at the truth of the "bad seed," in face of a good deal of understandable denial on the part of an interesting cast of extended family. And finally, most simply, as a page-turning piece of true-crime investigation-I lost track of the dead bodies midway through the book-set in New York and New Jersey in the 50's and 60's, a wild, colorful, and now almost forgotten time. The historical materials, the interviews with the hit man in jail, and the psychological musings of the author are intertwined in a way that kept me reading. Recommended.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars loving it and having nightmares, November 8, 2005

By 

J. Bowe (New York, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Blood Relation (Hardcover)

I knew that I'd buy Blood Relation after reading the excerpt in the New Yorker magazine, but I had no idea how much better the book would be. Konigsberg's voice is very subtle, almost plaintive and self-abnegating, and maybe it's because he's not a hard-seller with a typically annoying therapy issue to work out that his point gets across so poignantly: how weird would it be to have a mass murdering psycho's genes double-helixed alongside yours and those of your whole family? What is it like to deal with shame, to have your family shamed, to feel somehow (if irrationally) responsible for gruesome, venally, crudely performed acts of murder that you yourself had nothing to do with, but must somehow, however tangentially, live with for the rest of your life? The story itself is fascinating for anyone who's into the fifties and sixties and the whole mafia scene and great crime stories in general. I mean, the main subject here is a true and fascinating psycho. The murders and the glee with which he executes them is beyond compare. But I think the most interesting thing for me is the delicate and evolving relationship between the writer and his uncle, the mass murderer. As a story about family, as a story about a journalist, the depiction of what it must have been like to go visit this creepy guy in jail over and over again, this guy who's manipulating you, but desperate to get his story out, who at one point gets angry at you and threatens to kill you, then later on, berates you, "Hey, you jerk, why don't you come visit me more often?? Everyone ignores me!! Where's the love???" -- it's just too odd of a scenario and too well-written not to titillate and fascinate. I'd definitely give it a ten, whatever your background is. I think for anyone with any kind of immigrant backround, which is to say 99% of America, it's a fascinating story about how hard we all try to fit in and what happens when a real weirdo/loser enters into the picture. I loved it.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars the jewish godfather--a dark masterpiece, October 17, 2005

By 

Sibs C.P. (nyc) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Blood Relation (Hardcover)

Konigsberg's book is a success on many levels--as a period piece, a crime drama, and most impressively, as a profound investigation into what it means to be related to someone, anyone. Konigsberg does not flinch as he looks into what his murderous great uncle means to his family, his religion, his aspirations, and himself. An elegant, courageous work of art.