Goodfellas ( originally titled Wiseguy) is a terrific true crime book that just stops short of romanticizing the life of a gangster. The book is about working class Italian and Irish gangsters in Brooklyn, starting from their early days in the 1950s to their fall in the 70s and 80s, told through the eyes of a foot soldier - Henry Hill and his wife Karen. By the way the legendary “Am I some kind of clown, do I amuse you…” scene is not in the book and, apparently, was improvised by Joe Pesci who had seen a real mobster do something similar. The book is based on the real life story of a mobster Henry Hill. He used to be a member of Lucchese crime family. A deeper look into a Mafia World And it's something different to know about the Mafia from someone inside the under world. The experience was totally different from reading a Mafia Fiction (i.e. The Godfather, The Sicilian, Omerta etc). When I read The Godfather, I don't know from where it came, but a strange sympathy worked for the Mafia. But when I read this book, I came across to know about Mafia (the real Mafia) that it's totally different from what I read in those fictions. It's not so sympathetic and it's quite brutal and blood thursty. The money and self-interest is everything in this world. In this sense, I will give all the credit to Henry Hill. He was so honest about his detail description.

He was visualising the movie, where the camera would be, what he would be focusing on, while we were writing the script. He already sees the movie in his head." When Henry finally accepts that his old friends are after him, he agrees to cooperate with law enforcement. Henry and his family enter the federal witness protection program. Henry's detailed inside knowledge is a dream come true for law enforcement, which has long sought evidence against the elusive Paul Vario. Henry's testimony sends both Paulie and Jimmy to jail, along with a host of other less prominent figures in the criminal underworld. This is Henry's greatest scheme. By turning on his old pals and siding with the government, Henry ensures his immunity to every crime he has ever committed, or may commit in the future. Henry believes that his wiseguy friends are invulnerable, as indeed they seem to be. In this insular neighborhood, even the legitimate businessmen are willing to cover for their wiseguy neighbors who are admired as entrepreneurs and are unafraid to bend the rules. Wiseguys offer an alternative to scraping out an honest living in difficult economic times; many otherwise honest men and women are willing to accept a bribe now and again to earn a little extra money. Many judges, lawyers, and policemen are also on the wiseguys' payroll. Given these role models, it is no surprise Henry grows up to believe that honesty is for the weak and vulnerable; he perceives law-abiding citizens as fools, as prey. So I would actually be more likely to recommend this to someone who’s never seen Goodfellas, who can appreciate the sheer outlandishness of this memoir. Henry Hill, in collaboration with Nicholas Pileggi, wrote this book after he’d been placed in witness protection after ratting out the other members of his New York mafia family – so at that point, he’d already burned all his bridges and had nobody left to protect and nothing much left to lose. This means that he shares everything in this memoir, detailing the murders, the robberies, the drugs, the affairs, the betrayals…it’s all here, and it’s all just on the safe side of completely unbelievable. At the age of twelve my ambition was to be a gangster. To me being a wiseguy was better than being president of the United States. To be a wiseguy was to own the world.'Nobody had written much about Organised Crime before. The subject became Pileggi’s speciality, and when the publishers Simon & Schuster bought the rights to Henry Hill’s life story, Pileggi was a natural choice to write it. It is this disregard for other people that makes this such a chilling book. In this world of wiseguys, all is theirs for the taking. In fact, it made me think that if this is still the case, that anything you happen to possess that is of interest to the Mob can be taken away from you, the much-touted American concept of freedom is not very valid. At least you're not free to own things, and if you try to put your case to the law, Hill provides ample examples of how both the police and the judicial system has members on the take.

When Pileggi came out of the men’s room, Hill said, "Come on, let’s get out of here!" Straight away, Pileggi saw why Hill was so keen to leave. "I looked over and I realised Henry had hit the Maitre D' in the head with a wine bottle. The guy was bleeding." "What happened?" asked Pileggi, as they drove away. "The guy gave me some lip," said Hill, by way of explanation. Pileggi, Nicholas (1976). Blye, Private Eye (Firsted.). Playboy Press, Chicago. ISBN 978-0-87223-475-8. Access-restricted-item true Addeddate 2012-12-12 17:36:29 Boxid IA120121212-IA1 Boxid_2 CH114201 Camera Canon EOS 5D Mark II City New York, NY DonorPaulie offers Henry the opportunity to buy into a gambling ring with the Air France money, and Henry's new wife, Karen encourages him to buy a restaurant to provide for their growing family with a legitimate source of income. Henry does both of these things, and involves himself in dozens of other schemes as well. Henry works hard and plays harder, spending as many nights with girlfriends, prostitutes, and drinking buddies as with his wife and children. Henry is pinched by the police a few times over the years, but invariably buys himself out of trouble with Paulie's support. His children learn to consider his arrests and police searches of their home as routine occurrences. Karen is unfailingly loyal, helping him provide for the family in both his legal and illegal schemes.