Blood Relation - Softcover

Konigsberg, Eric

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0060099054 ISBN 13: 9780060099053

Publisher: Harper Perennial, 2006

Synopsis

A New Yorker writer investigates the life and career of his hit-man great-uncle and the impact on his family.

Growing up in a household as generic as Midwestern Jews get, author Eric Konigsberg always wished there was something different about his family, something exotic and mysterious, even shocking. When he was sent off to boarding school, he learned from an ex-cop security guard that there was: His great-uncle Harold, in prison in upstate New York, was a legendary Mafia enforcer, suspected by the FBI of upwards of twenty murders.

Konigsberg had uncovered a shameful, long-hidden family secret. His grandfather, a Jewish Horatio Alger story who had become a respected merchant through honesty and hard work, never spoke of his baby brother. When other relatives could be coaxed into talking about him, he wasn't "Kayo" Konigsberg, the "smartest hit man" and "toughest Jew" described by cops and associates; he was Uncle Heshy, the loudmouth nogoodnik and smalltime con, long since written off as dead. Intrigued, Konigsberg ignored his family's protests and arranged a meeting, which inspired the acclaimed New Yorker piece this book is based on.

In Blood Relation, Konigsberg portrays Harold as a fascinating, paradoxical character: both brutal and winning, a cold-blooded killer and a larger-than-life charmer who taught himself to read as an adult and served as his own lawyer in two major trials, to riotous effect. Functioning by turns as Kayo's pursuer, jailhouse scribe, pawn, and antagonist, Konigsberg traces his great-uncle's checkered and outlandish life and investigates his impact on his family and others who crossed his path, weaving together strands of family, Jewish identity, justice, and post-war American history.

About this title

About the Author:

Eric Konigsberg grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, and he lives in New York City with his wife and son. His writing has appeared in The New Yorker, the New York Times Magazine, Rolling Stone, and Tin House.

From Publishers Weekly:

Journalist Konigsberg embarks on a lengthy odyssey when he discovers, by chance, a dark secret that has haunted his respectable Midwestern Jewish family: his great-uncle has spent most of the past four decades in jail for a series of brutal crimes. Great-uncle Heshy "Kayo" Konigsberg eventually calls the author from prison (he wants to fictionalize his life) and sets in motion a series of bizarre visits during which the criminal attempts to manipulate the younger man's sympathies. Despite the author's clear-eyed awareness of his relative's misdeeds, which include vicious gangland murders that will remind many of the career of Sammy "The Bull" Gravano, he has a hard time staying away from the prison. Though "nasty, brutish, and short-tempered," Kayo is also oddly "ingratiating." But while Konigsberg succeeds at introducing touches of humor and deftly brings his family members to life, too much remains cryptic—particularly what led Kayo to his career path—to make the narrative fully satisfying. The author's determination to continue his quest becomes even more puzzling when Kayo's reaction to his planned piece for the New Yorker leads him to fear for his life. Nonetheless, this debut, with its atypical perspective on organized crime, will intrigue many readers.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harper Perennial
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0060099054
• ISBN 13: 9780060099053
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 288