Books by Joseph Di Prisco

The Fitzgeralds are buttressed by wealth and privilege, but they are also buffeted by crisis after crisis, many of their own creation. Even so, they live large, in love and in strife, wielding power, combating adversaries and each other. The Good Family Fitzgerald is a saga of money and ambition, crime and the Catholic Church, a sprawling, passionate story shaped against a background of social discord.Padraic Fitzgerald is the up-from-nothing, aging patriarch whose considerable business interests appear anything but legitimate, but he has bigger problems than law enforcement. A widower, Paddy becomes enmeshed with a young woman who will force him to re-examine his cardinal assumptions. Meanwhile, he has cultivated thorny relationships with his four children, all of whom struggle over the terms of connection with their father. Anthony-oldest son, principled criminal defense attorney, designated prince of the family-and his cherished Francesca are devastated by tragedy. In the aftermath, Frankie comes to play a vital role in Fitzgerald lore. Philip is a charismatic Catholic priest spectacularly torn between his lofty ideals and aspirations and his all-too-human flaws and longings. Matty has wandered aimlessly, but once he finds his purpose, he precipitates turmoil in all quarters. Colleen, the youngest, is a seeker who styles herself the outsider and the conscience of the clan. Her hands are full, as no Fitzgerald is left untested or unscathed, and by the end the whole family, as well as those venturing into their realm, will be stunned into illumination.

Joseph Di Priscos latest memoir brings back to life the hustler, gambler, criminal, bookmaker, and confidential informer who was his father. On the street they called him Pope, and he made his bones in Brooklyn during the 50s and 60s. Di Prisco discovered by accident fifty-year-old transcripts of New York State Appellate Division trials, where his dad was the star witness against corrupt NYPD copscops with whom he collaborated. Suddenly, Popes hazardous, veiled, twisting past was illuminated. This new book is both sequel and prequel to his much-praised memoir, Subway to California, and enlightened by these disclosures, Di Prisco memorably traces how secrets once revealed led to even deeper mysteries. In The Pope of Brooklyn he grapples with unsettling truths that simultaneously bind and separate father and son.

A wise and reassuring guide to fostering integrity in young children, making them people whom we admire as well as people who are proud of themselves.