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The Mad Ones: Crazy Joe Gallo and the Revolution at the Edge of the Underworld |  | Author: Tom Folsom
Publisher: Weinstein Books
List Price: $24.95
Buy New: $0.60
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Rating:  38 reviews
Sales Rank: 234486
Media: Hardcover
Edition: First Edition, First Printing.
Pages: 256
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.1
ISBN: 1602860815
Dewey Decimal Number: 364.1092
EAN: 9781602860810
Publication Date: May 5, 2009
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
A POWERFUL COLLISION OF TRUE CRIME AND POP CULTURE, THE MAD ONES CAPTURES THE REVOLUTIONARY SPIRIT OF THE SIXTIES AND BRINGS TO LIFE ONE OF THE MOST VIBRANT ANTIHEROES IN AMERICAN HISTORY. The Mad Ones chronicles the rise and fall of the Gallo brothers, a trio of reckless young gangsters whose revolution against New York City's Mafia was inspired by Crazy Joe Gallo's forays into Greenwich Village counterculture. Crazy Joe, Kid Blast, and Larry Gallo are steeped in legend, from Bob Dylan's eleven-minute ballad "Joey" to fictionalizations central to The Godfather trilogy and Jimmy Breslin's The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight. Called the toughest gang in the city by the NYPD, the Gallos hailed from the rough Red Hook neighborhood on the Brooklyn waterfront. As low-level Mafiosi, they were expected to serve their Don quietly, but the brothers stood apart from typical gangsters with their hip style, fierce ambition, and Crazy Joe's manic idealism. Joey aspired to be more than a common hood and immersed himself among the Beatniks and bohemians of the Village. Yearning to live the life of an artist, Joey wrote poetry, painted, and got his kicks devouring existential philosophy. Celebrated as the "king of the streets" by Dylan, Joey was embraced by the city's leading cultural figures as an antihero straight out of Camus. Here, for the first time, is the complete story of the Gallos' war against the powerful Cosa Nostra, an epic crime saga that culminates in Crazy Joe's murder on the streets of Little Italy, where he was gunned down mid-bite into a forkful of spaghetti in 1972. The Mad Ones is a wildly satisfying entertainment and a significant work of cultural history.
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 38
 The Joey I knew September 22, 2009
Stephen F. Whitmore (Cape Cod)
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
Growing up in the Park Slope section of Brooklyn at the same time as Crazy Joey - as we then knew him, I had a passing familiarity with Joey and his 'family'. He was a cheap violent punk, always trying to impress people with his 'badness'. He was perceived as a low life wannabe, neither smart enough nor connected enough to be a real player. The author accurately relays the time lines of Joey's life and the names of the people around him at the time but he falls far short of telling us what made Joey tick, what drove him. The book is a chronology but not a biography. Even then, the chronology bounces back and forth in time with no clear pattern and without a linking of events to Joey's personality. It's a broad brush overview with no subtleties or flavor.
 A CLASSIC TALE FROM THE MEAN STREETS ABOUT A HERO OF THE COUNTERCULTURE April 14, 2009
Rick (Manchester, NH)
16 out of 21 found this review helpful
The title comes from the Jack Kerouac quote: "The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn." And that's exactly how Joey Gallo lived his life.
The Mad Ones is the story of Joey and his brothers--Larry and Albert "Kid Blast" Gallo--a family of young gangsters whose revolution against New York City's Cosa Nostra in the 1960s was fueled by Joey Gallo's immersion into the hip Greenwich Village Beat scene. Bob Dylan (who wrote "Joey" about him), Bobby Kennedy, Pete Hamill, Gay Talese, Jimmy Breslin, Mario Puzo, Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Orbach--an incredible roster of people spun through Joey Gallo's life before he was gunned down in Little Italy in '72. Gay Talese points out that "He almost became one of the beautiful people."
The Mad Ones delves into territory unexpected in a "mob book." Much of the story deals with Joey's having explored the artistic and cultural worlds of the turbulent sixties.
Sure, it's a lot like "Goodfellas" and "Mean Streets," but in spirit it also shares a lot with Godard's French classic "Band of Outsiders," and the Gallo boys more closley resemble Depression-era gangsters like Pretty Boy Floyd and John Dillinger than they do Don Corleone.
The Mad Ones also captures a grittier era of New York City (specifically downtown and in Brooklyn) that is long, long gone.
Terrific story all around.
Disappointing-so much potential August 27, 2009
Nevada Smith (USA)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
I've heard Folson talk about this book on at least 3 different occasions and it sounded incredible. But it's kind of like when they show you the great trailers of a bad movie. There was so much potential. Great characters: Joe himself, his intersection with the 60's Greenwich Village scene is just touched on. That's a book in itself. Why not spend some time on Dylan's 11 minute song on Gallo? Joey's time in jail was grazed upon. The whole Columbo rallies and murder were major news in NYC and it was just passed by. At the end the Umberto's climax was handled as an afterthought. I grew up in that area, hung out across the street from Umberto's and believe me it was a big thing for a long time. I guess I came away from this book not really knowing anybody in the book, not finding what they did real interesting and very very disappointed. I feel bad because I loved hearing the author describe it and I know writing a book is hard. I am taking the author's recommendation to read Chief by Albert Seedman and just the introduction is better already than the Mad Ones. Sorry Tom.
 Great subject, interesting man, horrible writer July 16, 2009
Jack Healy
14 out of 19 found this review helpful
...don't waste your money on this one. I was sucked in by Tom Folsom's appearance on Jon Stewart and then a few "helpful" reviews that droned on about what a great story the Gallo brothers were. ...and that's true... However, Tom Folsom completely blows the telling of this story with cryptic sentences, erratic scene changes, minimal research and just plain blathering nonsense. I had to put the book down, turn on my laptop, and write this review - something I've never done with any other book.
This book isn't just a waste of money, but a waste of time. Thankfully there are many other books that focus on this milieu and era. But unfortunately one of the great stories during this time was completely botched.
Clip Job September 1, 2009
JT (Newark, NJ)
7 out of 9 found this review helpful
Mad Ones is more like a creative writing exercise than a book. The style is so forced and all the information, I mean all, is taken directly from other books or articles on Joey Gallo. There is no new reporting or interviews at all. Though you might not realize it after reading Mad Ones, the story of Joey Gallo is truly an all-time mob classic. The guy and his brothers and that whole crew from Red Hook were nuts. And the idea of connecting the Gallos, who basically were taking on the organized crime establishment, to the counter culture movement in NYC at the time is a great one. But that forced Kerouac style makes it impossible to follow the story of Joey Gallo and the author doesn't even take a stab at relaying what was going on counter culture-wise in NYC at the time.
Anyone who's interested in the real Gallo story should pick up Joey by Donald Goddard, The Killing of Joey Gallo by Harvey Aronson, The Luparelli Tapes by Paul Meskil or even The Sixth Family by Pete "The Greek" Diapoulous (Gallo's former bodyguard) and Steven Linakis.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 38
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