Reviews for The Deeds of My Fathers: How My Grandfather and Father Built New York and Created the Tabloid World of Today

The average rating for The Deeds of My Fathers: How My Grandfather and Father Built New York and Created the Tabloid World of Today based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2019-07-10 00:00:00 James Rudland One wonders at the amount of credence that ought to be lent to a mover and shaker in the tabloid world. But a bit of reflection convinces me that we ignore the whole tabloid genre at our peril. Our seemingly insatiable interest into the lives of the "rich and famous" motivates a huge chunk of the economy, particularly the entertainment industry. In a way it's all rather sick. But the Pope family clearly made a load of money here - after they were so successful as immigrants in the growing of New York, even if they rubbed shoulders so intimately with mob figures. A good telling.

Review # 2 was written on 2014-05-05 00:00:00 M T Crump I became curious about this book when a crank on our local Patch cited it as evidence that his town was all corrupt and on the take because that's the tradition started by Generoso Pope, the concrete king of NY. The book is actually written by Generoso's grandson and traces the family history through 3 generations. The story goes from Generoso's Italian small-town roots to his monopolizing of the sand and concrete business in Greater NY, leading to his son's building of a media goliath with The National Enquirer and the author's own struggles with unearned wealth. Bankrolling it all and adding some muscle was the former king of organized crime, Frank Costello. At first the writing seems clumsy, using flashback and a casual narrative, but by the third chapter the story becomes linear and the reader is completely engrossed. Any student of NY history and organized crime will find reason to chuckle at some of the re-created dialogue as passed down from father to son. Either a lot of naivete flows in the Pope family veins or some things were purposely not seen or heard. The book is not a complete whitewash, however, and the author freely admits family fault in corruption and intimidation, always stopping short of murder. I was expecting a self-published rag of a book, but it really is a well-researched and almost touching family history that adds another layer to our understanding of how money, power and connections can simultaneously corrupt a person while benefiting a community.