im reading the book...

and...

is this bullshit? he talking in it like he is saint etc.
he never commited any crimes etc. but all respected and feared him.. just for fun?

The book is valuable in that it gives you an insider's view of how The Commission was formed. It was SO valuable to a young prosecutor named Rudy Giuliani, that it helped him build the "Commission Case" back in the mid '80s.

You can keep the rest of it. It's an egotistical rant of a whitewash.

Why in the world would JB write such a book? Certainly, he had to recognize that some of compadres might take him out just for his hubris if not for breaking omerta.

Like an FBI agent said; they would never take him out because he was a "charter member" of the commission.

lol have you heard him in the interview?, he's like "on their own, people come up to me and say Mr Bonanno I wanna be your partner", and he also says "If Carmine Galante is dealing with narcotics I never know" which is of course alot of bull...

somone once in forum wrote that he was hitman for Maranzano?

According to Capeci, he was at the scene when Maranzano was killed. Maranzano allegedly said "Pepino?" which is the nickname of Bonanno. How romantic he set up his own mentor.

^^ yes i belive that.. becuase in book he saying about he admire Maranzano etc. and then when Lucky said he order killing... he just said...ok no problem its all good.

i was, wtf.

All autobiographies are self-serving, especially those by criminals. Bonanno would have us believe that, after repeal of Prohibition, he never broke a law--not even jaywalking. But,as PB said, the unique value of the book is that it is the only description we have of how the Commission worked. Plus, it's very good about the Castellemmarese War. And, it has nice anecdotes about life in early 20th Century Sicily.

As for the rest: Never touched drugs? He was in up to his neck. As has been repeated here a thousand times, that "vacation" he took in Italy in 1957 was to set up a heroin pipeline from Sicily to America with Charlie Luciano and various Sicilian mafiosi.

Why did he write it? Oli, I'm guessing that it may have been his way of posing as "a man of honor" at the expense of his successors--and of avenging his ouster by the Commission by running down his rivals. I don't think he actually envisioned that it would become the basis of the most successful RICO prosecution of the Mob, but it sure turned out that way.

Two things that don't make sense:

--If his father was such a pezzanovante in Sicily, why'd he leave his fiefdom to open a pasta factory and bar in Brooklyn? And how come he couldn't avoid being drafted into the Italian Army in WWI?

--Bonanno spends page after page describing how he worshipped Maranzano. But he was none too broken up after Maranzano was assassinated, nor did he try to take vengeance on the killers. Instead, the members of the family "elected" him their "father." Yeah, sure. I don't think he pulled a trigger during the assassination (Meyer Lansky organized a gang of Jewish killers at Charlie Luciano's behest), but I can't believe that Bonanno didn't approve it.

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