The Life We Chose—an unforgettable story. A really great read.” — Nicholas Pileggi, author of Wiseguy and Casino, and screenwriter of Goodfellas
“Mentored by one of the best in the business, Billy D'Elia did it all. Mafia diplomat, underworld entrepreneur. The Life We Chose is a riveting, extraordinary account of one of the last twentieth-century goodfellas." — George Anastasia, author of The Last Gangster and Blood and Honor
"It’s impossible to make up a mafia story like The Life We Chose. All the power play from The Godfather and The Sopranos with one key difference: it’s true. The Life We Chose is an unbelievable, truly great book.” — Jan Stocklassa, bestselling author of The Man Who Played with Fire
“The Life We Chose is a rip-roaring tear through the Mob’s heyday in America. Peppered with larger-than-life names like Jimmy Hoffa and Marlon Brando, Michael Jackson and Suge Knight, Crazy Joe Gallo and John Gotti, The Life We Chose is spellbinding. True-crime writing at its very best.” — Douglas Century, New York Times bestselling author of Takedown: The Fall of the Last Mafia Empire
“A fresh tale of ‘mafia royalty.’ . . . An eye-opening look at the ordinary—and nasty and lethal—business of organized crime.” — Kirkus Reviews
“These historical figures [Muhammad Ali and Johnny Unitas] have something in common—both did favors for a man once considered one of the country’s most powerful mob bosses . . . The book is a revelation about the power and influence Bufalino and D’Elia quietly wielded from their small Pennsylvania town on American society—from the streets to the stage to the stadiums.” — Washington Times
“[D'Elia] is baring all, offering a candid, unfiltered, and fascinating account of what it was really like to be a part of one of history’s most powerful mobs.” — Town & Country, The 41 Must-Read Books of Summer 2023 (#9)
“The Life We Chose provides an unprecedented insider’s account of the history of the American Mafia since the 1950s, breaking new ground all along the way. It’s a chilling and yet astonishingly intimate look at the lives of powerful crime boss Russell Bufalino and his successor, Billy D’Elia.” — Paul Moses, author of The Italian Squad: The True Story of the Immigrant Cops Who Fought the Rise of the Mafia
“D’Elia has now put it all on the record in an intriguing and entertaining new book . . . The Life We Chose is a one-of-kind historical document.” — JerseyMan Magazine
2023-03-25
A fresh tale of “mafia royalty.”
Even readers well versed in true-crime tales may not have heard of the Bufalino family, headed for decades by Russell Bufalino (1903-1994), “arguably the most powerful and important organized crime figure of the twentieth century.” Bufalino was known as a fixer, the guy who would broker a truce between warring factions or persuade a recalcitrant manufacturer why he should break with the Teamsters. As veteran investigative journalist Birkbeck writes, Bufalino and lieutenant and surrogate son Billy D’Elia were strongly implicated in the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa, and Billy had tales to tell—not that he told them, at least not to the feds. There were plenty of things to talk about, many full of tangles: Russell was an initial protector of Hoffa, though he warned him that it was a mistake, after a jail term for jury tampering, to try to regain leadership of the union after having made a deal with federal prosecutors to the contrary. On the dirtier side of things, mobster pariah Joey Gallo may have run afoul of Russell just ahead of having his head blown off in a Little Italy restaurant, about which Billy mildly remarks, “Russell? He never said anything about Gallo being killed. Nothing. And I didn’t ask him.” Throughout, the quotidian details of mob life are fascinating. Regarding the so-called poultry wars of the 1980s, for instance, there was a good reason why a leading manufacturer ran an ad proclaiming, “It takes a tough man to make a tender chicken.” Even more intriguing is how Russell, the quiet don, became a central inspiration for Mario Puzo and then Marlon Brando’s Godfather, while D’Elia, putatively a waste-management consultant, was an obvious model for Tony Soprano.
An eye-opening look at the ordinary—and nasty and lethal—business of organized crime.