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A review by tim_ohearn
I Heard You Paint Houses: Frank the Irishman Sheeran & Closing the Case on Jimmy Hoffa by Charles Brandt
3.0
I do like organized crime, having dazed through the Godfather trilogy the day my wisdom teeth were removed and recently watching Goodfellas on an airplane. I also like Irish men (and Irish women, for that matter). What drew me to this book was not the Netflix special I'll never watch, but the specter of Russel Buffalino which looms over my hometown of Scranton, Pennsylvania.
I'm a pretty dark, detached dude, but by the end of I Heard You Paint Houses, I found my interest in the criminal underworld waning. It just seems so senseless when considering that rampant corruption continues to do so much damage to my home region in Pennslyvania.
This was all before my time, and, as the foreword suggested, I had no idea who Jimmy Hoffa was. There's this weird persistent irony where the narrative has to be constructed partially from Frank Sheeran's bedside testimony but that his speaking or "slightly nodding" in response to the author's questioning is heretical. Makes for good books and great television, but drives home the point that nobody living this life could ever truly reconcile the financial loss they caused or the grief they inflicted.
I'm a pretty dark, detached dude, but by the end of I Heard You Paint Houses, I found my interest in the criminal underworld waning.
Spoiler
Okay, you transported the rifles supposedly used to kill JFK. Okay, you killed Jimmy Hoffa and the FBI immediately identified almost all of the prime suspects.This was all before my time, and, as the foreword suggested, I had no idea who Jimmy Hoffa was. There's this weird persistent irony where the narrative has to be constructed partially from Frank Sheeran's bedside testimony but that his speaking or "slightly nodding" in response to the author's questioning is heretical. Makes for good books and great television, but drives home the point that nobody living this life could ever truly reconcile the financial loss they caused or the grief they inflicted.