I DON'T WANT TO GO TO JAIL

Jimmy Breslin, I DON'T WANT TO GO TO JAIL

Breslin's literary ties to the mob go back to the days when he was churning out award-winning columns and bestselling novels (The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight), although he falls short of that level of excellence in this rambling, episodic novel about an aging Mafia boss whose nephew opts for a straight life. Fausti "The Fist" Dellacava is a gangster's gangster, an old school tough guy and a tyrant who uses his Mafia power to indulge a variety of whims, such as forbidding anyone on the street to refer to him by name: "Just look up quickly, as if searching a rock ceiling, when you mean The Fist." But his nephew and namesake is cut from a different cloth: when the younger Fausti decides that the threat of jail is a steep price to pay for a mobster's life of leisure, he tries his luck in the real world with decidedly mixed results. The bulk of the novel tracks the Fist's decline and demise in parallel with his nephew's efforts to establish himself beyond the Mob—but the book's real raison d'être is to give the audacious Breslin an opportunity to tell nonstop stories about the Mafia. He's at his best when he goes for laughs, particularly in the material involving Mafia trading cards, a mob priest named Father Phil and a vicious German shepherd named Malocchio, whose choice of victims inadvertently reflects the bigotry of his twisted owners. The lack of narrative structure makes this book a sticky read, but Breslin knows his subject and provides enough entertainment to justify wading through the slow spots. (May 23)

Forecast:Ads in major national publications and the Sopranos-fueled Mafia mania should get the book some attention, but it will probably sell mostly to die-hard Breslin fans.

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Reviewed on: 04/02/2001

Genre: Fiction

Mass Market Paperbound - 384 pages - 978-0-316-12032-6