For the Sins of My Father : The Legacy of a Mafia Life [Hardcover]

Albert DeMeo (Author), Mary Jane Ross (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 27, 2002

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. But when Al is seventeen, Roy's body is found in the trunk of a car, a gangland slaying that places Al between federal prosecutors seeking his testimony and a mob crew determined to keep him quiet.

Desperate to abide by the father-son bond, but equally determined to escape his father's dangerous and doomed life, Al Demeo embarks on a courageous quest for the truth, reconciliation, and honor. With the implacable narrative drive of a thriller and the power of a painfully honest memoir, For the Sins of My Father presents a startling and unprecedented perspective on the underworld of organized crime, exposing for the first time the cruel legacy of a Mafia life.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

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 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

How bad it is when your father is a goodfellaAhead of the Gambino familyAand you've looked up to him your whole life.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Broadway; 1 edition (August 27, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0767906799
• ISBN-13: 978-0767906791
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (89 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #248,814 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

55 of 56 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A journey into one young man's Heart of Darkness, June 6, 2004

By 

Kali "bengaligirl" (United Kingdom) - See all my reviews

This review is from: For the Sins of My Father: A Mafia Killer, His Son, and the Legacy of a Mob Life (Paperback)

I bought this book on the spur of the moment. It was in the sale and I thought, "What the heck, I've nothing else to read tonight!"

The author Albert DeMeo pulls no punches as he chronicles not only his father's life, the Mobster Roy DeMeo and his steady rise to power in the Mafia in New York but also his own involvement from the tender age of five in a world that was seductively charming as it was dangerous. "For the Sins of my Father" is a brutal, candid, violent, tender portrayal of a life in a huge glass bubble in which escape is not an option for anyone.

However Albert DeMeo is not an apologist for his father's actions, rather he pulls the reader in a world in which corruption is at the heart of everything. Just as you can't feel sorry Roy DeMeo for the choices he made in his life you also cannot feel anything for the Police, the FBI, the Government, the Court system because they were often as corrupt as the people they claimed they were trying to bring to justice.

Albert's father knew many people and many considered themselves law abiding whilst at the same time asking and getting favours from the Mafia Capo who was their "neighbour" and "friend".

In one chapter the young Albert helps his father's "crew" to work out how wipe clean some audio tapes that could send one of their members to jail; magnets the child tells them men can wipe clean magnetic tapes of all their contents. It is a corrupt police officer who puts a magnet next to the audio tapes so that they will be blank when they are played in court.

It is also to Mafia owned drinking dens that many court officials, police officers and other city officials attend to drink, buy drugs and enjoy the company of Prostitutes.

Roy DeMeo's murder in the early 1980s is a brutal wake up call for the teenage Albert and hounded by both the Mafia who want his silence and the FBI wanting him to turn State's evidence, Albert somehow manages to salvage his life out of the wreckage of violence his father has left behind.

This is not a fairy tale, there is certainly no happy ending but Albert DeMeo is living proof that you can walk a way from organised crime and go on to live a legitimate life, all it takes is a lot of courage, the memory of how your father, a man you loved beyond all words, died in a hail of bullets, murdered by the very people who were supposed to be his friends and associates.

This book is very different from the gratuitous Best Seller "The Murder Machine" which demonises Albert's father; this is a book that puts a life into perspective, warts and all. Violence, car crime, prostitution, gambling, protection rackets, corrupt officials, loan sharking, pornography are put on display and it is left up to the reader to judge where the line between right and wrong lies.

There is no moving away from the fact that Roy DeMeo was a murderer, a Mafia Capo and a man with a criminal mind, but the world he worked in was a world providing services and commodities that people wanted and even the law was not above the stench of death, and corruption.

Read this book with an open mind and remember a father's love can transcend even the most vile of crimes....

27 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating!, September 11, 2002

By 

Linda Dore (sykesville, md) - See all my reviews

This review is from: For the Sins of My Father : The Legacy of a Mafia Life (Hardcover)

I read this book in one day-couldn't put it down! I grew up in Massapequa, NY and went to school with Al DeMeo. It blew me away to read what he was going through, while attending high school and acting like a "normal" kid. We all knew that his father was "in the mafia" but it was presumed that most weathly Italian men in this area also had links to the mob. While I was drawn to it for my hometown connections, my husband, who is not from LI, also could not put it down! I have recommended it to many family and friends. Excellent story about the home life of a member of the mafia and the repercussions it has on his family, the ones he tried so hard to protect.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I couldn't put it down--the story rings true to me., October 9, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: For the Sins of My Father : The Legacy of a Mafia Life (Hardcover)

I couldn't put this book down as I rooted for Al all the way through. However, I think this book will be much more appreciated if you read MURDER MACHINE first. Al DeMeo describes his childhood as the only son of a high ranking mobster, and the double life he led as a kid at school and a wiseguy in training. I admire him for surviving all he describes and becoming a man of whom his father surely would have been proud. I wish him every success and happiness.