Customer Reviews

Honor thy father

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

If you expect a breezy page-turner about mob life you will be pleased in parts and disappointed in others. If you want a deeply investigative account of a mafia family, its history and personalities, this book is excellent. I'm not an enthusiast of the mob genre, so I came to this book with little else than what I've seen in the movies. It traces the rise and fall (or at least the beginning of the fall as it was published in 1971) of the traditional Sicilian mafia in America. Against this background are detailed and rich studies of the Bonanno family -- one of the original five New York City mob families. Nevertheless, it's not a Reader's Digest book. It is well researched and detailed, and the author makes frequent tangents. Gay Talese has formidable talents, so I did not mind any of these excesses. If you know what to expect from this book, it is very enjoyable.

This book took a long time to finish. Actually, too long. I agree with those who found it's pace languid, and it's tone solemn. I did find it very interesting what Talese, whose work ethic and commitment to his projects is legendary, writes in the Author's Note that concludes the book, about his relationship with Bill Bonnano, and his subjects. His fondness is very apparent, as well he had incredible access to them, allowing for the intimate information he uses to tell the Bonnano story. But I feel that there is something to his relationship that prevents Honor Thy Father from being more engrossing, more urgent, more energetic. Perhaps the compromises he made to gain access proved an unobjective view. It feels that way. Because the book could have easily been 100 to 150 pages shorter. Extended paragraphs on lawyer's (verbatim) statements, over long observations about Bonnano's feelings while driving cross country, or the myriad interwoven nature of the "mafia" borne out to bewildering and at times confusing degrees.

Not to spoil it, but the ending packs as solid a wallop as only a few sections throughout do. In two pages Talese conveys the bind that Bill was in and expresses what his father Joe's recognition of his son's life means to him. It pinpoints the anxiety and mystery of the whole tale.

I did appreciate the juxtapositioning of Bonnano's family-wife and children-with his "family"-uncles, capos, consiglieri, etc. It proves Talese right that getting to know a mafioso such as Bonnano is both ironic and intruiging because he is a man like us all-stresses with his wife, concerned for his children, wanting to impress his father, weight fluctuations, affairs, but he also has pressures which are specific to his family's history-his sister's awareness of what their father has done to him, codes of honor and silence, absences for unknown and unexplained reasons, constant moving, security, guns, etc.

I like Talese though. I am curious about his other works, and I value the style he helped pioneer. I just wish there was a less expansive scope here. It has an epic length, but it doesn't have vibrant enough sub-plots and twists. It's really about one man's difficult world.

QUESTION: What motivated you to let Gay Talese have your story?

Bill Bonanno: Gay Talese was a very insistent correspondent for The New York Times at the time. The New York Times, he told me, doesn't have reporters, they have correspondents. And he just didn't give up. He was very tenacious. He hounded me for about four or five months until I said OK, you can have the story, provided that we have an understanding: that you will get it a little bit at a time whenever I can. I couldn't very well tell him that at the time I was involved in a shooting war in New York.

One of the stupider criticisms, amidst many legitimate ones, of George W. Bush in this 2000 Presidential campaign is that he is merely following in his Dad's footsteps; as if this was unusual? John McCain went to the Naval Academy--his father and grandfather were admirals. Steve Forbes runs Forbes magazine--here's a shocker for you, he wasn't the founder. Al Gore was nicknamed Prince Albert because he was so patently aping his old man's career. (Bradley is the exception here, thanks to the freak gift of athletic ability). And, your intrepid correspondent, the fifth of six consecutive Orrin Judds, attended the alma mater of three of the four, went to law school like the third and, barring a strict prohibition from my wife, would even now be attending seminary like the first and fourth. This is what men do, we follow in our fathers footsteps. In Honor Thy Father, Gay Talese offers a fascinating real-life account of what happens when the family business turns out to be the Mafia.

Talese was still a beat writer for the New York Times in 1965 when he was sent to the federal courthouse in Manhattan to cover the arrest of Bill Bonanno, an intelligent, affable young mobster who had been wanted for questioning in the disappearance of his father, mob boss Joseph Bonanno. Talese, himself of Italian descent, had long wondered what life was like for real mafiosi. He approached Bill Bonanno, who was his own age and was college educated (though he never finished) and asked him if he would sit down for a series of interviews which would lead to a book on growing up the son of a Don. Over the next five years, while Bonanno dealt with the disappearance and reappearance of his father, fought his way through a mob war (the Banana War) and ended up going to prison for credit card fraud, Talese gained unprecedented access to Bonanno and family and friends. The result is this fascinating novelistic account of life inside the Mob, with a particular focus on how this bright, articulate, modern man was drawn into his father's brutal and backwards business.

It all makes for riveting reading.

GRADE: A

The condition of the book was very good, it was easy reading, and factual.I would recommend this book to any age group. it was a good ensight to all.

I'm a Brazilian journalist and I had red all Portuguese translated books wroten by Gay Talese, but two of them, Unto the sons and Honnor thy father, I needed to read in English because it didn't have Portuguese version in Brazil. A liked booth a lot. Wonderful vision on the Italians in América and a vital historical analyse about the Máfia Bonannos family. I recomend.

Very good Mafia book to own for the mafia fan. Very quick receiving it & in very good condition. I am very happy with my purchase.

Released in 1971, this is a reprint of the classic Bonanno New York Mafia family biography with a new Afterward updating what happened to the prime extended family members. Still insightful as it was back in the 1970s, readers get an insider look at the rise and fall of the Bonannos via the interviews by NY Times reporter lease and Bill Bonanno after they met in 1965 in a courtroom. The book is broken into four overarching periods starting with the infamous disappearance of the boss Joseph Bonanno in 1964 just after dining with his lawyer and while carrying no weapons and with no bodyguards; this snatch led to the "Banana War" between his mob and three other New York area gangs.

Insightful even with the account being more a historical, the audience will enjoy the side tidbits like the gangsters hiding in the boroughs (with dogs) or New Hampshire while laughing at the Untouchables. Though at times the action wanes leading to boring sections; readers should remember the goal was an honest account of Mafia life in the 1960s and 1970s. For the most part this is achieved, but the tone also feels as if Mr. Talese somewhat crosses the thin line with his subject as he appears to like Bill as a person. This remains a fascinating look at the Mafia from the inside in which silent loyalty is everything so why did Bill agree to five years of interviews and how did that impact his relationship with his dad; the son understood the Mafia mantra of HONOR THY FATHER, but how can revealing insider information live up to that tenet?

Harriet Klausner

This is the kind of book you either love or hate. It doesn't have the same thrill and suspension such as "Wiseguy" and "Underboss", and it doesn't reveal anything new about the mafia. Certainly a disappointment. But if you read it as a piece of new journalism writing it won't let you down.

This author is an excellent writer. He informs, educates and enterains all at once. If you want cliches go some where else,
if you want a great book stay here.

"Honor Thy Father" is a highly santized look at the Bonanno crime family, one of the infamous "Five Families" in the New York Mafia.The principal character is the son of the Family Boss. Because the author had the cooperation of the Bonannos in writing "HTF", a reader can scarcely expect any juicy "inside the mafia" expose. And, of course, that is exactly what the reader will NOT get. The story suffers further by its' studied, almost languid pace. Ultimately, "Honor Thy Father" is a tale leading nowhere and signifying nothing. The one and only saving grace is the historical background provided on the OTHER New York area families and the intrigues, betrayals, rubouts, deportations, etc that have provided so much entertainment. I remember the unsuccesful"hit" on Frank Costello and the succesful Park Sheraton Hotel hit on Albert Anastasia (in his barber chair at the Park Sheraton Hotel)because, at different times,I lived near the sites. On my way to school,I daily walked past Frank Costello's apartment building at 115 Central Park West. Other than this New York Mob trivia, "Honor Thy Father" has zero to offer. And nowhere between the pages is a single "honorable" act performed. Readers should look elsewhere for tales of honor or of the Mafia.