On the Run : A Mafia Childhood - Hardcover

Hill, Gina; Hill, Gregg

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 044652770X ISBN 13: 9780446527705

Publisher: Warner Books, 2004

Synopsis

The children of Henry Hill, whose life inspired such works as Wiseguy and Goodfellas, share their experiences of growing up in their father's out-of-control world of witness protection program identities and mafia retribution, describing their never-ending quest for safe and normal lives. 100,000 first printing.

About this title

Reviews

Fans of mob turncoat Henry Hill based on Nicholas Pileggi's Wiseguy (an account of Hill's life) and the popular film adaptation Goodfellas will be forced to dramatically re-evaluate him after reading this gripping memoir by his children—who were only a passing blip in those earlier versions. Their warts-and-all portrayal of the immense disruption to their lives caused by their father's criminal recidivism is often heartbreaking. At a young age, they were exposed to family friends like Jimmy "the Gent" Burke, whom they knew as Uncle Jimmy, unaware he was a brutal truck hijacker. When investigators on the 1980 multimillion-dollar Lufthansa heist obtained Hill's cooperation as a witness, the children were given an hour to pick through their possessions to select what they could take with them into their new life in the witness protection program. Gregg and Gina often give overlapping perspectives of the same events, as they struggle to adjust, without the benefit of any guidance, and to craft plausible backstories for their new classmates and neighbors. Gregg's story is especially moving as he traces his personal evolution from model student to an adolescent forced to protect his mother from his father. The grimness is leavened with humor, and the many readers who will be rooting for these innocent victims will be heartened by their capacity to transcend a truly awful upbringing. B&w photos.
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While Martin Scorsese's almost-lovable wiseguy Henry Hill led a life of unbroken adventure with the Mob--finding haven in the federal witness protection program when he informed on his colleagues--it was hard to know just who, besides Hill's crime victims, was paying the tab. In this wrenching but involving account, we find out: his children. Hill's son and daughter pick up the story pretty much where Scorsese's Goodfellas left off: the family packing their belongings into Hefty bags and hustling to safe houses in the Hamptons, then Omaha, then rural Kentucky, then finally Redmond, Washington. "Our lives weren't just falling apart," explains son Gregg, "they'd been vaporized, liquidated, erased." And their father only made things worse, resuming his criminalizing but also carelessly exposing the family to the mobsters trying to kill them. Miraculously, son and daughter here seem to have outrun the horror of their childhood, so far. Alan Moores
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Warner Books
• Publication date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 044652770X
• ISBN 13: 9780446527705
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256