March 18-24, 2004
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George Anastasia reads
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books
In a month when the new Sopranos season competes with books by good guys (Joe "Donnie Brasco" Pistone) and bad guys (Henry Goodfellas Hill), it's nice to get hold of a new George Anastasia work. Plainly and simply, Anastasia -- the Philadelphia Inquirer writer responsible for the recent coverage of the Tommy Hill-Joey Merlino case -- makes blunt reportage lyrical. While his previous books look at crime and family from inside the heart of darkness (Blood and Honor:Inside the Scarfo Mob, the Mafia's Most Violent Family; The Summer Wind: Thomas Capano and the Murder of Anne Marie Fahey), Anastasia's newest book, The Last Gangster: From Cop to Wiseguy to FBI Informant, Big Ron Previte and the Fall of the American Mob (ReganBooks) finds itself mired in the temptations of a lush life from the outside: a crooked police officer turned mob guy turned informant. Forget the fact that there are more twists and turns in Previte's case of a man selling and reselling his soul than there are pretzels at Federal Baking. Linger instead on Anastasia's language, the rapture of finding the tiniest details. This is what makes Anastasia -- even when covering, occasionally, the same material and time period in Philadelphia mob life as Blood and Honor and The Last Gangster -- a dynamic read in the paper. Savor his ability to complement the savagery and staidness of a local crime scene with the vivaciousness of a written word that's neither too hot nor too cold.
George Anastasia reads Thu., March 18, 7 p.m., free, Free Library of Philadelphia, 1901 Vine St., 215-567-4341.
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