Booknote: Gangsters and Goodfellas

Henry Hill, as told to Gus Russo, Gangsters and Goodfellas: Wiseguys. . .and Life on the Run. Edinburgh: Mainstream, 2006. ISBN: 9781840188813.  (WorldCat link goes to print edition. I could not find a good record for the audiobook. I do think listening to it may be a better reading experience.)

 

Genre: nonfiction, memoir, biography

Subgenre: true crime, mobsters, Mafia

Format: audiobook

Source: I found this on YouTube of all places 

 

I picked this up in part to have a selection for the Audiobook Challenge I am doing this year and in part out of curiosity since I have read Wiseguy (link to my review).  This book picks up where the film Goodfellas ends as Henry Hill and his family enter the Witness Protection Program. From there, he goes on to tell of his life in the WPP and his many mishaps, misadventures, and mistakes as well as some insights on mob life. After the first chapter showing the starting days of being in the WPP, we go to Henry telling about his childhood and younger days. The story then develops to bring us back to the current time of the book. The narrative goes between Henry Hill telling his story and others who add to the story along the way such as federal agents and his spouses. 

Some of the stories we get are stories we may already know about if you read Wiseguy and/or watched the film Goodfellas, but we also get some additional insight into those stories, small details we may have not seen or that the film left out. In addition, we do get some new things here are there. Henry Hill could be quite the storyteller, so keep that in mind. The truth at times may be somewhere in the middle. 

Let me take a moment to highlight some details from the book: 

•  I find it interesting that Henry Hill had a talent for cooking. In interviews, he has said that he started learning from his mother, and it was a way for him to get affection. In a house with multiple children, he had to hustle to get that affection, and being in the kitchen helped with that. From the looks of it, he could have been successful running restaurants has he followed an honest path. 
• I found it a bit amazing that for all the issues he had with petty crime in his military time (he was a member of the 82nd Airborne), he managed to still get an honorable discharge. 
• Hill notes how the mob has turned to shit after his time in the 1960s. It is all informants now. He notes things like not paying taxes may have been a mistake; after all, the IRS can and does find people. They did get Capone on tax evasion after all. They made money, but they did not always know what to do with the money, so they mainly lived it up, so on. For all their crimes, the mobsters could be idiots;the are not not too bright. They were always very eager to go into any scheme, good or not. Though they still made sure to get paid even when the scheme was a failure.
• Karen, his wife at the time, was very much into the criminal business Henry was in. She certainly enjoyed the shopping sprees that the money he was making provided at the time; you get a small glimpse of this in the film. What we do not see in the film is that so did Karen's mother who often went shopping with Karen as well. 
• The death of Billy Batts was more about shylocking; Jimmy had taken over Batts' rackets while Batts was in prison, and when Batts came out of prison, Jimmy refused to hand those rackets back. The Tommy incident we see in the film did happen but it was not the main reason Batts was killed, though everyone thought it was the Tommy incident. The incident happened mostly as it did in the film. 
• Henry in addition to being a good storyteller does have a pretty good eye for detail. When Henry gets moved for witness protection the first time, it was to Omaha, Nebraska. He describes seeing the big sky and flat lands and cattle. He told people he was an insurance investigator; Omaha was home of Mutual of Omaha and other insurance companies, so it was an easy story to tell that would be believable. It was also fascinating to hear him telling the first time he saw a tornado, again, something he had not seen before. He had never been west of the Mississippi River prior to this; he had only traveled the East Coast. He did have to be near an airport to testify because he had to fly back and forth to New York City. Turns out things would not be as bad. Family was not that happy with the boring location. He was drinking a lot and haunted by the memories. Keep in mind that over time, the main way Hill made a living was by retelling his story in various ways. As much as he wanted to get away from the life, the stories made him money, but the experience over time was still traumatic. 
•  He also spent some time in Kentucky and Ohio, near Cincinnati. At one point, they were going to move him to Lexington, KY. He saw it as a problem given the large federal penitentiary there;  he worried any of the wiseguys' families spotting him. He saw it as serious slip in the marshal's security. He had to call MacDonald, the Assistant US Attorney, to get him out, which eventually happened but not that much better; he ended up not far from Covington and Cincinnati; in Independence, KY. oh, and next to a racetrack, which was not helpful for his gambling habit. His one refuge was cooking. Still, the place was not good for him and family overall. Him being hyperactive did not help along with his bad habits. The misery of the place, and he makes it clear him and family were miserable there, made him misbehave hoping to get moved. Moved he was eventually, got kicked out of WP but the feds still had a hold over him.
• From Kentucky they moved him to Seattle. At times he has a sense of wonder about the new places he gets sent to. He clearly did not like Kentucky; it was a very hick place for him. He got married in Seattle, despite being married already. It was a crazy, drunken moment, but he argued he did it under his assumed name. It did not last long, and the second wife and him eventually broke up. We do get Sherry's version of the story as well. She points out that Henry talks a great game; the guy did have a sense of humor and charm that women often like. MacDonald, in a documentary, noted as well Henry had that certain charm. Sherry's version is a bit hilarious in some parts. 

Overall, the book is interesting, and it can be entertaining at times. It is a pretty easy listening experience as well. Some of the material readers may have read or seen before, but you also get a look at his life after he gets into the Witness Protection Program. For fans of the film Goodfellas, it may be interesting to see what happens after the end of the film.  Hill does show the charm he is known for in the book, and there is even a bit of humor here or there. In the end, I did like the book. 

3 out of 5 stars. 

Book qualifies for these 2021 Reading Challenges: