MARK KREIGEL
Reminiscent of the work of Pete Dexter, this stunning novel of crime, vengeance, and redemption, set on New York City's meanest streets, revolves around one desperate man who will do anything to regain his honor--and another who will do anything to save his soul. Frank Battaglia is a swaggering soldier of the Mafia, greedy for the power generations of thugs have taken as their right and compelled by an inner demon to rip away the shame that surrounds him like a shroud.
As a young fighter, Frank fell apart in the ring at Madison Square Garden, a humiliation witnessed by the most powerful gangster in the city. In Frank's eyes, only one person can salvage his reputation: his son Nicky. Life, however, is not as Frank envisions it. The Village, once the unquestioned fiefdom of the Mob, has gone sour on him, turned into a haven for yuppies. And Nicky, devastated by the suicide of his older brother, wants only to play basketball, lose his virginity, and listen to sweet soul music, his brother's legacy to him.
His father's plan to make him a champion in the boxing ring and on the streets repels and horrifies him. But when the gangland-style murder of the city's last great Mafia don puts Frank on the front pages of the tabloids, Nicky discovers a terrible truth about his father--and the truth about what it means to be a tough guy in the nightmare universe of New York's underground.
Resounding with the authentic voices of New York City and pounding to the beat of the streets, Bless Me, Father is a gritty, chilling portrait of what life is really like in the Mafia, where men are sacrificed, destroyed, and, sometimes, made whole in the name of honor.
I'm a follower of this blog and have to thank you for turning me on to this dynamite first novel. I was down with 90 percent of it but thought the last fifth of the novel did not do the rest justice. I looked for more fiction by the author but fond this is it, the rest are non-fiction.
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