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A review by davidsenpie
Joey the Hitman: The Autobiography of a Mafia Killer by David Fisher
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.