"One of the best independent non-fiction books of the year."
The Chicago Writers Association, 2021
Mob Adjacent: A Family Memoir
Take an acid trip down memory lane as brothers Jeffrey and Michael Gentile, Jr. discover a parallel world hidden behind a suburban façade. For them, The Wonder Years collides with The Sopranos.
Mobsters come to dinner, contract hits come with warning notices, and thieves deliver merchandise and people. How does something like that happen to an ordinary family? Blame it on the company they keep when a family has friends and acquaintances that include Sam Giancana, Jackie Cerone, and an assortment of hoodlums, gangsters, bone-breakers, and second-story guys, with cameo appearances by Tony Accardo, Frank Sinatra, Leo Durocher, Jackie Gleason, Art Carney, Joan Collins, Liza Minelli, and Elizabeth Taylor. In their world, the guy who robs the bakery is as respected as the guy who bakes the bread! For the Gentile brothers, life at the intersection of Hoodlum and Gangster yields dividends and teaches lessons. This is their story.
After Hours with Rick Kogan
"A fascinating book…a fascinating read. Mob Adjacent will open your eyes. The stories are true and genuine and heartfelt, and there’s a real honesty in this book.” -- Rick Kogan, WGN Radio 720, March 25, 2018
John Records Landecker
"I cannot recommend [Mob Adjacent] more if you're interested in the history of the Chicago Outfit in Chicago." -- John Landecker, WGN Radio 720, October 26, 2020
John Kass
John Kass
John Kass
“I love this book. A fascinating account. You’ve got to read this book before the movie.” -- "The Chicago Way," WGN Radio, May 14, 2018
Roe Conn
John Kass
John Kass
"This is my kind of Chicago story. You cannot put it down. You want a Netflix series, this is it.” -- Roe Conn, WGN Radio 720, April 30, 2018
Read and Watch
Mob Adjacent: The documentary series
Our 10-webisode documentary takes viewers to the intersection of Hoodlum & Gangster.
Time Travel for Beginners
An adventure for all ages
There's no telling what might happen when a young boy discovers the secrets of time, the meaning of life, and the flexibility of death.
Max Gardner spent the past twenty-years convincing himself that the peculiar events of 1982 never happened, only to be confronted with proof that everything happened exactly as he remembered.
The Gardner home is a busy place in the 1980s, with two parents and six children leading eight different lives. As the youngest, 10-year old Max is often overlooked, to his great delight. There’s an attic full of wonders waiting to be explored, and he digs joyously through generations of junk – dirty books, opera records, Christmas ornaments, photos, trophies, and the remains of lives past. But nothing prepares Max for the adventures waiting inside that battered, black steamer trunk, where he finds a book that gives him the power to alter events and leap across time.
Things get complicated after he accidentally raises the dead and puts his entire family at risk. Now, Max has to sort out the mess to avert catastrophe and build a relationship with his distant, disapproving father. Time Travel for Beginners shows what’s possible with hope, help, and a little prayer.
But what happens when the strange powers return?
Love and Bullets
A comedy with a body count
When a nightclub entertainer and a gangster take a battered teenager into their home and hearts, they become a family as real as any bound by blood, and “bringing up baby” gets a whole new meaning.
There’s nothing unusual about the family living on Aberdeen Street. They’re like every other family. They share meals and chores, watch television together, celebrate special occasions, and look after each other. They’re the kind of family Norman Rockwell would paint if he were still alive – and doing acid.
“Mom” is Chicago’s most famous female impersonator – Billy Blanchard, better known as Blanche D’Almond, belle of Café Muse; “dad” is Sammy "The Pig" Gavone, a mid-level mobster; and their “son” is the banished child of religious fanatics. Who’s to say what makes a family?
But it’s not all white picket fences on Aberdeen Street. There's a greedy IRS flunky looking for a big score, an FBI agent with an axe to grind, a clingy male model with the prettiest feet in America, a meatpacking heir with a taste for S&M, a kinky trophy wife, and an unfortunate incident involving a vat of eucalyptus-scented wax. Then things get really complicated.
When a nightclub entertainer and a gangster take a battered teenager into their home and hearts, they become a family as real as any bound by blood, and “bringing up baby” gets a whole new meaning.