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Reviews
Joey the Hitman: The Autobiography of a Mafia Killer by Joey the Hit Man, David Fisher, Clint Willis
davidsenpie's review against another edition
dark
funny
informative
mysterious
reflective
sad
slow-paced
3.25
In all, I think the book was marketed as something different from what it is. If you pick this up expecting to hear about the violent and exciting exploits of a hitman, and what makes a dark person like that really tick, you’ll get that for a few chapters. Then, the book really turns into some very thorough breakdowns of how exactly mob business works, lots of numbers, percentages, even formulas.
It ends up not being the book you wanted, and I think that can turn quite a few people off, namely the type to skip the Melfi scenes when they watch Sopranos.
Jokes aside, I was admittedly a little disappointed after reading a few chapters of numbers and figured, but once I tried to reframe my expectations with what I was reading, it became quite interesting again - to read from the point of view of this guy, who by all measures is a bit of a genius with numbers and so enterprising, framing his place in existence in the ultimate counterculture of our society, is pretty fascinating in a lot of ways.
As a case study of this guy, one can’t help but imagine who he could’ve been if dealt a different hand, or if born a little different, at a later time, who knows? He definitely manages to reframe my perspective of the mafia as a business entity. I’m sure he felt he was the perfect person for his time and place.
Hard to recommend because it turns into such a weird book versus what you’d expect, not much in the way of stories and excitement, but I did find it a valuable read and learned more than I ever expected.
Could see a good movie being made of this.
It ends up not being the book you wanted, and I think that can turn quite a few people off, namely the type to skip the Melfi scenes when they watch Sopranos.
Jokes aside, I was admittedly a little disappointed after reading a few chapters of numbers and figured, but once I tried to reframe my expectations with what I was reading, it became quite interesting again - to read from the point of view of this guy, who by all measures is a bit of a genius with numbers and so enterprising, framing his place in existence in the ultimate counterculture of our society, is pretty fascinating in a lot of ways.
As a case study of this guy, one can’t help but imagine who he could’ve been if dealt a different hand, or if born a little different, at a later time, who knows? He definitely manages to reframe my perspective of the mafia as a business entity. I’m sure he felt he was the perfect person for his time and place.
Hard to recommend because it turns into such a weird book versus what you’d expect, not much in the way of stories and excitement, but I did find it a valuable read and learned more than I ever expected.
Could see a good movie being made of this.
ericwelch's review
4.0
The clear message of this quite fascinating book is that crime could not exist without the compliance of “honest” citizens and the connivance of the police. “I’m supposed to be an evil man. I’m supposed to be eliminated so people can walk the streets at night. Not only is that bullshit, that’s the worst hypocrisy I’ve ever heard. Without your so-called honest citizen I would cease to exist. He’s my customer and my employer. . . As soon as the American decides he is willing to pay the full price for merchandise, willing to follow all the laws, willing to stop gambling and playing around on the side, I’m gone. I can’t survive.” He was heavily involved in gambling, loansharking, and prostitution -- the contract killing was just a sideline. “If there is one thing I’m going to stress in this book; it’s that you cannot legislate morals; don’t try. The people want prostitution, let them have prostitution. . . Let man be the master of his own fate. The minute you tell a man he is not allowed to do something, you’ve just created a brand-new business. Because I’m gonna be there to help him do it — just as often as he can afford.”
There is so much money involved in these criminal activities that the police become willing participants. Not just by taking payments under the table, but also by creating huge new bureaucracies and budgets to help fight crime. Joey’s point is that the state, by legalizing and regulating, could make the streets safer and save everyone a lot of money in taxes, but much of the resistance to legalization comes from the so-called honest citizen who is making a lot of money through the existence of crime. “Without corrupt politicians and the help of the police organized crime could not exist. It’s a simple as that. They are the people who allow us to operate, they are the people who grease the wheels.” Organizational hubris is also of benefit to the criminal. “One reason the FBI isn’t as effective as it might be is that in many cases they have to work with local police and more often than not they end up fighting against each other. There is just no clear jurisdiction most of the time. The federal agents could save themselves a lot of grief if they learned to work with cops, but they never will and that’s why the FBI just isn’t that effective. . . .As far as federal agents go, we fear the Treasury people much more than anyone else because they can nail you on your taxes. . . And I don’t know one of these agents that has ever been gotten to.”
Joey obviously had a sense of humor, too, albeit perverted. He was in the army, sent there by a judge for juvenile crimes, for a while, making sergeant four times, but he kept getting busted for some of the silliest reasons. For example, he was given a form with a list of organizations and was asked on the form if he “belonged to a party that is trying to overthrow the government of the United States?” He replied, “Yes,” and was called to the colonel’s office. “I told them, ‘I’m a Republican and we’re trying to get Truman out of there.’ Looking back, I have to admit it seemed funnier then.”
There is so much money involved in these criminal activities that the police become willing participants. Not just by taking payments under the table, but also by creating huge new bureaucracies and budgets to help fight crime. Joey’s point is that the state, by legalizing and regulating, could make the streets safer and save everyone a lot of money in taxes, but much of the resistance to legalization comes from the so-called honest citizen who is making a lot of money through the existence of crime. “Without corrupt politicians and the help of the police organized crime could not exist. It’s a simple as that. They are the people who allow us to operate, they are the people who grease the wheels.” Organizational hubris is also of benefit to the criminal. “One reason the FBI isn’t as effective as it might be is that in many cases they have to work with local police and more often than not they end up fighting against each other. There is just no clear jurisdiction most of the time. The federal agents could save themselves a lot of grief if they learned to work with cops, but they never will and that’s why the FBI just isn’t that effective. . . .As far as federal agents go, we fear the Treasury people much more than anyone else because they can nail you on your taxes. . . And I don’t know one of these agents that has ever been gotten to.”
Joey obviously had a sense of humor, too, albeit perverted. He was in the army, sent there by a judge for juvenile crimes, for a while, making sergeant four times, but he kept getting busted for some of the silliest reasons. For example, he was given a form with a list of organizations and was asked on the form if he “belonged to a party that is trying to overthrow the government of the United States?” He replied, “Yes,” and was called to the colonel’s office. “I told them, ‘I’m a Republican and we’re trying to get Truman out of there.’ Looking back, I have to admit it seemed funnier then.”
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