Who is Al Capone

Uncle Al Capone - The Untold Story from Inside His Family

by: Deirdre Marie Capone

Amazon Price: $11.92 (as of 02/15/2012)

If you want a book that focuses solely on the public side of the Capones, look elsewhere. This unique book tells the story of multi-dimensional Capone family members as seen through the eyes of a child, and then a young woman. Nothing about the criminal side of the family is whitewashed. What is added are the images of an Italian immigrant family, happy in their home and devoted to each other. That's not to say there was no discord or that life was easy if your last name was Capone. In fact, it was a horrific burden to Deirdre's father, in particular.

The tone of the book is warmly inviting, as if the author is having a one-on-one talk about things that have happened in her sometimes surreal life. The small details such as Al Capone teaching Deirdre how to play the mandolin, her aunt's way of speaking through her teeth, the big names that talked about casual things...it all adds up to a very personal, honest, and fascinating portrait of a family who infamously became part of American history.

Al Capone and His American Boys: Memoirs of a Mobster's Wife

Amazon Price: $17.95 (as of 02/15/2012)

"Helmer delights history buffs once more with his research and inimitable style, bringing us the memoirs of a primo gangster's moll. Hers is a first-hand account of being married to one of Al Capone's travelling psycho-circus of killers called the "American boys" who moved from St. Louis to Chicago to live the gritty gangland life of the Roaring Twenties." -- Mario Gomes, www.myalcaponemuseum.com

"Deemed too hot by its publisher in 1934, this incredible and revealing story sheds new light on major crimes, including the St. Valentine's Day Massacre -- the defining moment that cemented Chicago's reputation as a city of criminal mayhem.... A candid look at the era of Capone, Frank Nitti, Georgette's husband Gus, and a group of Public Enemies who continue to fascinate a new generation of readers." -- Richard C. Lindberg, author of The Gambler King of Clark Street: Michael C. McDonald and the Rise of Chicago's Democratic Machine

Capone: The Man and the Era

by: Laurence Bergreen

Amazon Price: $4.15 (as of 02/15/2012)

In the wake of Robert J. Schoenberg's Mr. Capone (LJ 8/92), called "the most detailed biography of Capone published to date" by LJ's reviewer, comes an even more detailed account based on extensive research and interviews. Bergreen, who has written biographies of James Agee and Irving Berlin, has "abandoned conventional assumptions of...right and wrong" in his sympathetic portrayal of the one-time Public Enemy Number One. He blames the hypocrisies of Prohibition and anti-Italian bias for creating Capone's undeserved reputation, and he is especially critical of Capone nemesis Eliot Ness. Bergreen labels the tax evasion trial that sent Capone to prison a "legalistic lynching" and tends to excuse Capone's more unsavory actions as the results of "latent neurosyphilis." However controversial, this book offers much of interest, including new information about Capone and his family. Larger crime collections will want both books. Gregor A. Preston, Univ. of California Lib., Davis Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.