Customer Reviews

I Don't Want to Go to Jail: A Novel

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As noted on the cover of, "I Don't Want To Go To Jail", this is indeed, "A Good Novel". If the first third of the book and its humor were maintained throughout the novel, the book would have been great. The work certainly is as unique as its Author Mr. Breslin, so if at times it became a bit slow, there still was no temptation to put it down.

From the cover with its visual parodies of, "friends of ours", to the quote at the book's beginning from Mr. Sal Meli, who appears to have been the government's guest at many of their facilities, and finally with the endorsements on the back, its not totally unreasonable to suggest this is closer to historical fiction than a pure novel. Many of the characters in the book are or were true-life figures. Mr. Breslin must have either had this approved by, "The Concerned Lutherans", or perhaps is contemplating retirement in some Southwestern State living and writing under a new name. The other possibility is the subjects of this book have a sense of humor and enjoy being in Mr. Breslin's book as much as appearing on their very own trading card.

As the decline of, "The Fist", is chronicled along with the demise of the power of the traditional crime families, the story slows a bit as well. It may be that for those who are fans of, "The Godfather", and of the romanticized version that Hollywood has delivered, reading of the slide of The Boss from the top player to a broken shell that eats Thorazine like M&M'S is akin to watching the mighty Casey strike out.

The influence of organized crime may wax and wane, however it is firmly embedded in our culture and literature. There are many who have chronicled the Families with a wide range of intent. For fun and authenticity Mr. Jimmy Breslin has no peer.

Very loosely based on the true story of a Mafia boss who was known to wander around his Greenwich Village neighborhood in a bathrobe while mumbling to himself, Jimmy Breslin, a well-known New York City columnist has created a sometimes funny comic novel about the Mafia. It is supposedly set right here in my own neighborhood, but he made enough changes in the landscape to make sure this is considered a work of fiction. The darkened storefront "social clubs" where men sat around bridge tables, drinking coffee are gone now, replaced by trendy shops and restaurants, but Mr. Breslin writes of an era when a gangster he calls "The Fist" held the City in an iron grip.

The book is an easy read, its 300 pages a jumble of episodic anecdotes centered around the nephew of the feared boss whose famous last name creates complications for him because he wants to simply go straight and marry his childhood sweetheart. Mr. Breslin exaggerates and pokes fun at the gangster world, and the total obedience given to The Fist, his men even going so far as to take a second wife and raise a second family because that was the way The Fist lived. There are also some very funny stories about a dog as well as some chuckles about bubble gum trading cards with pictures of mob characters on them. It's the very small grain of truth to that weaves its way into the writing that is the heart of the humor however. I especially like the part about the nephew getting a job at the Javits Convention Center, making big bucks as a member of the corrupt carpenter's union.

The book is lighthearted froth that shouldn't be taken too seriously. This is apparent from the cover art and the blurbs on the back. The characters are stereotypes and there's no attempt to make it anything more. Therefore, just accept it for what it is. And enjoy.

I Don't Want To Go To Jail

The author of "The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight" is back with another novel depicting the lighter side of the mob. Only Breslin would have enough guts to place the head of the mafia social order in Greenwich Village. The book is witty, amusing, and downright funny.
The book is about two characters, one being the head of the mob, named Fausti "The Fist" Dellicava and his nephew who is named after him, Fausti Dellicava. Both of theses guys do not want to end up in jail. But The Fists past might prohibit them from being free men. The story about The Fist is that he is being charged for certain "crimes". He finds various ways to get out of his convictions. His nephew Fausti is trying to live a straight life away from his name and the mob. But sense his name is the same as the infamous crime lord, its kind of hard.
I would recommend this book to any one who would like a little crude and witty humor in their life. I would not recommend this book to people with a low reading level because it was a little hard to follow at times.

admittedly, i'm not the world's most patient reader. but by the time i'd completed the first third of this book, all 26 chapters of it, i just couldn't continue. firstly there was not one thread of continuity between any of the chapters. they were seemingly random selections from time and place - whatever happened to occur to the author to write next, i assume. secondly, the quality of the writing is noweher near what i would call sufficient to be publishable. breslin has clearly never bothered to go back and read over what he's written. the narrator of this book talks like a half-wit. thirdly, and this is perhaps why i found this book such hard going, breslin is a confusing storyteller. in one chapter he refers to the main character in question simply as 'he' until about five pages in. when you realize who he's talking about you have to go back and start the chapter over to put everything you just read back in context. and having to read things ten times because of awkward wording was becoming a bit of a theme by the time i gave up. initially i charitably thought that some of these idiosyncracies might just be down to jimmy breslin's personal style of writing. i soon came to the conclusion, however, that they were more a function of his ineptitude.

just old stories in a new wrapper. Invites comparison to Mario Puzo: Breslin's is an Irish take on the human condition-- sarcasm like Puck, "what fools these mortals be;" Puzo does grand opera--Italian melodrama of the human condition, waste and loss. Both are narrative, but Puzo's characters are rounder; neither is dramatic.

Breslin is fun when he writes about those who connive against interest. But characters here are thin; interactions between lovers are haptic--flat AND thin, like cartoons. His gift is tapping memory for an image, a smell, a habit; and making just-in-time connections--gangster trading cards undoing the mob. But zip in his prose has gone missing. Maybe New York has changed for him, too, and his point, that the world of the mob was its own undoing, applies to him. The Gotham he loved is gone, and he mourns like Damon Runyon.

I am not a fan of the Political Breslin but I admire and like the literary Breslin. He is a good story teller. However, this book is not up to his standards. I know there are kernals of information, truth behind the fiction that I would not have known. I just expected Breslin to put these truths in a more consistent storyline. I think he could have written a better book.

So, here I was in New York Penn Station, my train is delayed, and I walk into a bookstore to find something to read. On a special table I see Jimmy Breslin's new book, "I Don't Want To Go To Jail." Breslin....in New York City....too good to pass up.

The cover was emblazoned with a badge calling it "A Good Novel", and Carl Hiassen is quoted, on the cover, saying that "Jimmy Breslin delivers more laughs in a single page than most writers do in a whole book. He is impossibly funny."

The rest of the reviews are just as laudatory, so I bought the book, expecting a raucous send-up of the Mob in New York City with a strong underlayment of the anger, fear, and terror that speaks to the strange dialectic of "family" and "crime", "loyalty" and casual fratricide that is the real dynamic of the Mafia.

But the reviews are as phony as a no-show job on a construction crew. There is no story line, no plot, the characters come and go with little respect for continuity, dropping in and out with no warning in the middle of a paragraph.

Some mob novels try to build sympathy for the characters, others vilify them as savage animals, and the best show the quicksilver contradiction as they dangerously veer between humanity and savagry. But Breslin is lost between all of these, and so we get nothing more than a series of loosely connected vignettes that never add up to a single story or viewpoint.

I often like impressionistic novels where seemingly random scenes and events are daubbed like paint in loose strokes on a canvas, so that you feel more than see the whole emerging as you go deeper and also step back for perspective. But Breslin is not reaching for this, or if he is, he misses badly, and we are left with a cacaphony of characters and scenes that never meld or mesh.

In the end, this book is not about the Mafia in New York. It is about Jimmy Breslin's self-image as THE interpreter of the wise guys for the rest of us. But the novel does not ring true and feels like something anyone could make up after seeing Goodfellas and reading The Godfather...

Can you sue a jacket cover for false advertising? Right there on the front cover is the bold statement, "...Delivers more laughs on a single page than most writers do in a whole book. He is impossibly funny!" Only if those other writers are the ones that write the phone book. The only thing funny about this book is that I shelled out good money for it. If the publishers had been a little more accurate about what was inside, I might be a little more forgiving. This book is an aimless and shapeless collection of anecdotes, loosely connected by the common theme of a mob presence in a "ficticious" New York City neighborhood. "Laughs" are conspicuously absent.

It's obvious that Jimmy Breslin has an immense fondness for his New York/Italian heritage, and is a consumate student of New York City's citizens, past and present. It's also obvious to the reader that he harbors a whimsical nostalgia for those tough, but kind-hearted "made guys". I can imagine Mr. Breslin spending countless hours of his free time jotting down notes about his own real life experiences in just such a neighborhood, knowing that one day he could weave them into a great novel. However, it appears that Mr. Breslin actually just sent the notebook to the publishers, and forgot to write the novel. If you actually lived in this "ficticious" neighborhood, and are actually one of the characters mentioned in this book, you might find it mildly interesting. But if you're looking for laughs, you'd be better off with the phone book.

If your a fan of mob stuff, this book will entertain you. It's obviously about Vinny the Chin, you realize that right away (if you've done your mob homework). Jimmy Breslin has a strange style of writing that can be hard to follow at times. Your not sure what tense you are in at times, present or past, he jumps around, and it gets a little annoying. Well, he was a columinst anyway. This is my first Breslin read. I hear the Gang That Couldnt Shoot Straight is much better. This book pokes fun at the stupidity and contradictions that is a mobsters life. But it entertains! Very street. Sometimes a description of an inflection in a characters tone might have helped, i had to go over some passages more than once. But all in all, this is a humorous look at a sad world. Enjoy!

I grew up within 25 miles on New York City in the 60s and 70s when Breslin was king. The Daily News and the New York Post were staples in our home; my blue collar father brought them home religiously daily. Reading about the Mafia was almost a hobby for me, real life soap opera; Breslin was always there, commenting, following, allowing me into their world through tabloid print. In this book, it seems like Breslin struggles in creating historic fiction. His story telling is uneven and sporadic, akin to sitting around with a reminiscing Grandpa, waiting impatiently through the slow and disjointed anecdotes, wondering if the chuckle was worth the wait. The characters, hyperboles providing targets of convenience for uprorious laughter, are underutilized as Breslin scores low, many circles away from the bull's eye.

Big dissappointment. You can never go home again.