Book Review

            For my assignment I read the book Wiseguy, written by Nicholas Pileggi.  Wiseguy is the life story of former mobster Henry Hill.  Overall, I found this book to be fascinating.  I enjoyed reading Wiseguy more than I’ve ever enjoyed reading any piece of writing before.  What I liked most about Wiseguy is that when I was reading it I didn’t get that feeling of complete boredom, that I usually get when reading, instead I felt more like I was just witnessing this amazing story.  It was almost as if I was watching a movie.  It is difficult for me to say weather this can be attributed to Nicholas Pileggi’s writing or simply to the exciting subject that is the life of Henry Hill regardless of any particular style of writing.  Not once does Pileggi just touch on a subject briefly or skip over something he feels was insignificant in Henry’s life.  If it happened to Henry Hill it’s in Wiseguy and It’s in great detail.

            Henry’s adventures with the Mafia started when he was just eleven years old.  Henry was raised by his Irish father and Sicilian mother in a house directly across the street from a Mafia-run cabstand.  Henry spent every day of his life looking out his window at the fat wiseguys with their suits, shinny jewelry and fancy cars, and he idolized them.  Henry says, “I dreamed of being a wiseguy the way other kids dreamed about being doctors or movie stars or firemen or ballplayers.” 

            In the beginning Henry would just run simple errands for the Mafia.  He would park cars at the cabstand, go grocery shopping for the wiseguys there, and other stuff like that.  It wasn’t until later that Henry became involved in the actual crime part of organized crime.  By the time he was in his twenties Henry was heavily involved in hijacking and illegal cigarette smuggling.  Aside from a few robberies, two to be exact, hijacking and cigarette smuggling were pretty much the only thing Henry did while he was in the Mafia.  Though it doesn’t seem like much Henry was able to make a fortune doing relatively little work for the mob.  Henry was not exactly what one would call the killing type.  Though he was present at the time of many killings, Henry really did not enjoy murder and he was disgusted at how his friends could kill someone and not think twice about it.  Just because Henry didn’t like to kill people doesn’t mean he wasn’t down for savagely beating someone every once in while.  In fact, it was Henry’s short temper and quickness to attack and assault someone that got him a ten year sentence in a state penitentiary in upstate New York. 

            Henry owned a night club on Queens boulevard called “The Suite.”  The thing about people in the Mafia is that when they own something like a nightclub on a particular street; they don’t just own that nightclub; they own the whole street.  The revenue industry is one that the Mafia has become very efficient in.  Basically the mobster on the block, in this case Henry, will go around to every store and tell the owner that they have to pay a certain amount of money to the mobster every month if they don’t want to be killed.  Henry was getting pretty pissed off at this guy who owned a fish market down the street and was consistently neglecting to pay Henry what was owed to him.  Naturally, Henry and his friend Jimmy decide to go pay the guy a visit, they beat him, stuff him in their trunk thinking he’s dead, and drive upstate to bury the body.  Of course the guy wasn’t dead, he escaped from Henry and Jimmy while the two were fighting over how to open the package of lime, he went to the police, and just like that Henry and Jimmy were both facing up to ten years in prison.

            It wasn’t until Henry got sent to jail that he started getting into the most trouble.  When Henry went to jail he left behind his wife and two daughters.  As long as the four of them had been living together as a family they lived an incredibly lavish lifestyle; which can be attributed to the insane amount Henry accumulated as a wiseguy.  When Henry left so did his family’s money.  It was impossible for Karen (Henry’s wife) to keep up with the economic standard Henry had set for her and her kids regardless of how many jobs she took.  Henry had only seen his family prosper from his wrong doings, and he hated to see his wife and kids suffer from them.  Henry knew that he had to find a way to make money for his family, he knew it would be almost impossible to do behind bars, but he also knew he had to do it.  During his time in prison Henry Hill was the head of a multi-million dollar marijuana trade.

            Though far beyond crazy, and immeasurably illegal; Henry’s plan was genius, and it worked.  In order to carry out his master plan Henry needed to make it fool proof.  Every prison guard who could become aware of Henry’s operation was made well aware of it and was handsomely bribed to keep quiet.  I know it’s sad but unfortunately it’s how the world works.  As it turned out the prison shared a wall with a local handball court.  Through his friends Henry was able to arrange for a certain group of drug dealers to be standing on the handball court at a certain time every day.  Being an attractive women Karen would never be searched when walking into the prison to visit Henry, thus allowing to her to smuggle in the pounds upon pounds of marijuana that she brought Henry whenever she came to visit.  Henry would then stuff all the nugs, marijuana, into massive amounts of handballs that he had hollowed out.  Every day Henry would throw hundreds of handballs over the wall to his dealers who would make their sales in a timely fashion, and then promptly return the money to Karen at her home.

            Henry continued his new found profession as a drug dealer for years after he was released from prison.  With his connections, as long as Henry was only dealing marijuana he was pretty much in the clear and didn’t have to worry about going to jail.  The thing about Henry Hill is that to him money is everything.  Why should he settle for making $25,000 a week selling marijuana when he could make $2,000,000 a week selling cocaine?  Henry was unable to turn down all that money, especially when it was so easily accessible.  Once Henry got into cocaine the feds were on to him.  Finally, after an extremely long investigation Henry was arrested for selling cocaine, thus marking the end of his career in organized crime.

            This book is awesome.  Never before have I encountered a first hand experience of life in a Mafia family.  For my entire life I have idolized the people who are like Henry Hill was before he started selling cocaine.  Contrary to what most people like to believe the world is a pretty screwed up place.  Life, especially in America, is based on a corrupt system.  There are only two ways to beat the system and truly succeed in life: the first is to be in the American government; and the second is to be involved in organized crime.  Though anyone you ask will refuse to believe it the government does more drug trafficking than any Mafia crime family in the United States.  Honestly, is the government’s collecting taxes really that different from the Mafia’s collecting revenue?  It’s not at all.  If the Mafia ran the country and the government ran the world of organized crime, the world would be exactly the same as is it is the other way around.  I recommend this book for anyone who has a realistic view on the world.