Author Eric Konigsberg grew up in a prosperous and socially conscious Midwestern Jewish family, descendants of east European immigrants who had settled and made their living and reputation in Bayonne, New Jersey.
Sometime during his young adulthood, the author is surprised to learn that his father's uncle, Harold Konigsberg (Koyo), is a violent and notorious Mafia hit man accused of some 20 murders. Not satisfied with simple murder, he is infamous for permanently disturbing the surviving family members.
While writing a magazine story on mob crime, despite his family's objections, Eric becomes acquainted with Koyo, who has spent the last 40 years in jail on a never-ending self-led legal battle. Soon the author is being manipulated by his uncle to aide his crusade for freedom. His association with the crime figure ends when his life is threatened.
This intriguing story is told through the uncovering of family denial and lore, historical facts, statistical data on Jewish immigrant culture, narrative from victims families, facts from FBI and court reports and commentary from Koyo himself.
It's hard to say whether Konigsberg (Uncle Heshy) is a brilliantly manipulative businessman, a remorseless criminal, a loyal family man or just plain psychotic.
Maybe the moral of the story is: There are some basic issues children should take advice from their parents about--and forging a relationship with family members connected to the mob might be one of them!
Armchair Interviews says: Intriguing story that was most interesting to read.
I knew that I'd buy Blood Relation after reading the excerpt in the New Yorker magazine, but I had no idea how much better the book would be. Konigsberg's voice is very subtle, almost plaintive and self-abnegating, and maybe it's because he's not a hard-seller with a typically annoying therapy issue to work out that his point gets across so poignantly: how weird would it be to have a mass murdering psycho's genes double-helixed alongside yours and those of your whole family? What is it like to deal with shame, to have your family shamed, to feel somehow (if irrationally) responsible for gruesome, venally, crudely performed acts of murder that you yourself had nothing to do with, but must somehow, however tangentially, live with for the rest of your life? The story itself is fascinating for anyone who's into the fifties and sixties and the whole mafia scene and great crime stories in general. I mean, the main subject here is a true and fascinating psycho. The murders and the glee with which he executes them is beyond compare. But I think the most interesting thing for me is the delicate and evolving relationship between the writer and his uncle, the mass murderer. As a story about family, as a story about a journalist, the depiction of what it must have been like to go visit this creepy guy in jail over and over again, this guy who's manipulating you, but desperate to get his story out, who at one point gets angry at you and threatens to kill you, then later on, berates you, "Hey, you jerk, why don't you come visit me more often?? Everyone ignores me!! Where's the love???" -- it's just too odd of a scenario and too well-written not to titillate and fascinate. I'd definitely give it a ten, whatever your background is. I think for anyone with any kind of immigrant backround, which is to say 99% of America, it's a fascinating story about how hard we all try to fit in and what happens when a real weirdo/loser enters into the picture. I loved it.
