All Ebooks in This SeriesThe Men Behind Mob Wives: Sammy "The Bull" Gravano (Father of Karen Gravano)The Men Behind Mob Wives: Anthony "TG" Graziano (Father of Renee Graziano)The Men Behind Mob Wives: Salvatore "Sally Dogs" Lombardi (Uncle of Angela "Big Ang" Raiola)The Men Behind Mob Wives: Joseph Ferragamo, Louis Facciolo and Bruno Facciolo (Ex-husband, Father and Uncle of Carla Facciolo)The Men Behind Mob Wives: Benjamin "Lefty Guns" Ruggiero (Grandfather of Ramona Rizzo)The Men Behind Mob Wives: Lee D'Avanzo (Husband of Drita D'Avanzo)The Men Behind Mob Wives: Hector "Junior" Pagan (Ex-Husband of Renee Graziano)The Men Behind Mob Wives: Salvatore "Sally Dogs" Lombardi (Uncle of Angela "Big Ang" Raiola)The Men Behind Chicago Mob Wives: Frank "The German" Schweihs (Father of Nora Schweihs)The Men Behind Chicago Mob Wives: John A. "Big John" Fecarotta (Uncle of Renee Fecarotta)

From Karen Gravano, a star of the hit VH1 reality show Mob Wives, comes a revealing memoir of a mafia childhood, where love and family come hand-in-hand with murder and betrayal. Karen Gravano is the daughter of Sammy "the Bull" Gravano, once one of the mafia's most feared hit men. With nineteen confessed murders, the former Gambino Crime Family underboss—and John Gotti's right-hand man—is the highest ranking gangster ever to turn State's evidence and testify against members of his high-profile crime family. But to Karen, Sammy Gravano was a sometimes elusive but always loving father figure. He was ever-present at the head of the dinner table. He made a living running a construction firm and several nightclubs. He stayed out late, and sometimes he didn't come home at all. He hosted "secret" meetings at their house, and had countless whispered conversations with "business associates." By the age of twelve, Karen knew he was a gangster. And as she grew up, while her peers worried about clothes and schoolwork, she was coming face-to-face with crime and murder. Gravano was nineteen years old when her father turned his back on the mob and cooperated with the Feds. The fabric of her family was ripped apart, and they were instantly rejected by the communities they grew up in. This is the story of a daughter's struggle to reconcile the image of her loving father with that of a murdering Mafioso, and how, in healing the rift between the two, she was able to forge a new life.

Everything about Angela “Big Ang” Raiola is larger than life: her lips, her 36JJ breasts, and especially her personality! In a lifestyle guide as genuine and fun as Big Ang herself, the star of VH1’s Mob Wives, called the show’s “den mother” by the New York Times, serves up the hilarious and poignant wisdom she’s learned while running her bar, raising her family, and dating made men. Big Ang has rules to live by for beauty, food, family, friendship, and more. Here she is... ON HER KILLER BOOBS: I was on vacation with my family in the Catskills when out of nowhere, this bat flies right into my chest and then falls splat on the ground. Turned out, he died on impact. ON FAMILY TRADITIONS: Every Sunday, we do a feast for fifteen to twenty-five people. Last week, we went through seventy-five meatballs. Even by my family’s standards, that’s a lot of balls. ON DIETING: Swearing off lasagna to lose weight? You might fit into smaller jeans. But you’re still the same person— except hungrier and bitchier. ON HOBBIES: Would I rather cook for people or have sex? No hard-and-fast rule there. But I will say this: Cooking is always satisfying.

Food this good should be illegal. "Mob Wives," VH1's wildly successful hit show, follows the lives of six women affiliated with the mob. Now, show creator and Executive Producer Jennifer Graziano, star Renee Graziano, and their restaurateur sister, Lana Graziano, reveal their best-kept secrets yet. The Grazianos invite you into their world but this time through the kitchen door, with this full color cookbook featuring 100 of their favorite and most-coveted family recipes. From Lana's famous meatballs to Sunday Gravy to Lobster Arriagiatta, the secret recipes are on the table. Plus, the book is spiced throughout with personal never-before-told stories that will let you get to know the most famous real mob family a little better. Experience the Grazianos' lives from inside their kitchen where food and family are never far apart. Funny, outrageous, sentimental, and always authentic, the Grazianos leave you with the skills to talk the talk, cook pasta like there's no tomorrow, stir up a mean marinara—and use that meat cleaver to back it up.

This contributed volume brings together personal accounts and scholarly research in an examination of the LGBTQIA+ Italian American experience and representation in North American media. This is a population that has long been ignored both as an object of study and as a media-maker and consumer. Through consistent filmic representation, the image of the Italian American has become archetypal, leaving us with a set of immediately recognizable characters: the hyper macho blue-collar greaser, the anti-intellectual GTL Guido, the child-obsessed mamma, and the heteronormative mafia family. The rhetorical and literal loudness of these characters drowns out other possible embodiments of Italian American identity so that few examples survive of Italian Americans that do not conform to these classed, heterosexual modes of being. This volume fills that void, foregrounding the importance of representation and of rethinking the historical narratives and cultural stereotypes surrounding Italian American identity. This book is especially designed for those with an interest in queer theory, gender and sexuality studies, Italian American studies, and media and cultural studies.