What’s With All the Mafia Stories?

by Mark Rubinstein, author Assassin's Lullaby

Whether it’s The Godfather, Goodfellas, Casino, Scarface, Breaking Bad, The Sopranos, a Jack Reacher novel, or crime novels by Don Winslow, Nelson DeMille, Dennis Lehane, James Patterson, or other bestselling authors, the mafia will likely make an appearance.

It can be the old Italian mob or Russian Organized Crime, or the Irish or Albanian mafia or the emergence of a Colombian or Mexican cartel kingpin. It can involve the old Untouchables series, the Cagney, Bogart, and Robinson movies of the 30s and 40s, or the more contemporary mafia-thriller renderings. These stories live on in the popular imagination and no doubt, will continue to do so.

Mafia stories seem to have a timeless appeal whether they arise as a blockbuster movie, a nail-biting TV series, or a page-turning bestseller.

There may be many reasons for the enduring popularity of mafia stories whether told on the screen or page.

For one, the mafia may be seen as the realization of the American dream. Against many odds, the mafia Don is depicted as a self-made man who, despite the odds being stacked against him, climbs the economic ladder to success. Though mafiosi are often portrayed as flawed, greedy, and ruthless, they’re pitted against the well-ordered establishment and are portrayed as outsiders who manage to beat the system. Thus, the fictional mafiosi are idealized anti-heroes who succeed in a cruelly hostile world.

We shouldn’t forget that mafiosi are portrayed mythically as “men of honor” bound by a code of intense loyalty and enduring family ties. There’s the well-worn lore that they’re men of passion in an age when such qualities are viewed as rare to non-existent. Of course, this is the fictional mafia while in reality, the mafia (of any ethnic persuasion) corrupts, degrades, and kills. The fictional portrayals romanticize these criminals, often making them heroic figures or anti-heroes. But we all must have our illusions and mafia stories provide us with plenty of illusory lore, especially when it comes to honor, tradition, and family loyalties.

And let’s not overlook the reality that people have always had a morbid fascination with crime, violence and sex, (whether presented in a series like The Sopranos or Game of Thrones) which are richly depicted in countless mafia tales. 

There’s the vicarious nature—and the fantasy—of the forbidden and exciting criminal life depicted in stories involving the dark side of human nature. It’s a darkness we find compellingly attractive. This is especially true for sex, vengeance, and violence. These hidden (largely unacceptable) urges are often at the deeply buried core of our beings, and run rampant in virtually all mafia stories.

How else can we explain the popularity, not only of mafia tales, but of boxing, professional wrestling, and mixed martial arts, otherwise known as cage fighting? In essence, mafia tales appeal to the primal urges that lie deeply buried within us. And whether reading a crime novel, watching a mafia television series, or sitting in a movie theater, we can get our vicarious fix of these forbidden fruits.

Mark Rubinstein is the author of Assassin's Lullaby. Rubinstein, a novelist, physician, and psychiatrist, has written eight nonfiction books, including The Storytellers. He has also written eight novels and novellas, including the Mad Dog trilogy and The Lovers’ Tango. He lives in Wilton, Connecticut. For more information, please visit http://www.markrubinstein-author.com

How Well Do You Really Know Your Friends?

By Lexie Elliott

How well do you really know your friends? It’s not a rhetorical question. Let me ask a different one: when was the last time one of your close friends surprised you? Most likely a very long time ago. But when we think that we truly know someone, are we in fact confusing true understanding of them with the ability to predict their responses and actions? And is that even an important distinction anyway? 

I surprised certain people—colleagues and friends both, who’d known me for years, even decades— when I first told them I’d secured a publishing contract. Their congratulations and expressions of delight couldn’t entirely mask their perplexity: they hadn’t predicted this; they hadn’t fully comprehended my commitment to writing, if they’d taken note of it at all. I was in a certain pigeon-hole in their head—a mother and an athlete, with a doctorate in theoretical physics and a job in finance in the city of London—and they hadn’t expected me to spring out of it, like a jack-in-the-box. Sooner or later they would start a sentence that trailed off unfinished, such as “I hadn’t realised…” Or, “I didn’t know…” This is a benign example, of course—but for all that they were thrilled for me, I could see that this unexpected turn of events was unsettling to them. They were being forced to reassess me. And if they had to reassess me, who else might they need to reconsider? What else might they have missed?

Friendships formed with people who have the same interests as ourselves are especially prone to a blinkered view. My teenaged years were spent in a haze of chlorine, ploughing up and down swimming pools in pursuit of ever faster times. When I reached university and joined the swim team, it was extraordinarily easy to fall into socialising with the other swimmers. We had the same shared history: painfully early morning alarms, endless hours in the pool, social events sacrificed for competitions that took up entire weekends. Surely anyone who had chosen to invest enormous amounts of time and energy in the same way that I had must think the same way that I did, and have the same values? A desperately naïve assumption, I now think, but not one that I questioned at the time. It’s an assumption that plays into the dynamics of the friendship group at the heart of my latest novel, How To Kill Your Best Friend, the members of which met in just that way—at university, through the swim team. We come across them more than a decade later, when the passage of time has scattered them to very different lives in different parts of the globe, and one of their number has mysteriously drowned. They’re not even the same people they were at university—they can’t be, time and life events have shaped them into something new—and yet they presume nothing has changed, that they can extrapolate from those years spent training together within the comforting bubble of academia to predict each other’s behaviour when under threat on a remote island… Perhaps that gap, between belief and reality, would never have tripped them up had their lives continued in the same vein, with no unexpected obstacles along the way; then the distinction between true knowledge and mere predictability would have been immaterial. But we writers—particularly writers of psychological thrillers!—are not kind to our characters: we put them in extreme circumstances to see what unfolds. And, given writers in this genre are not exactly glass-half-full people either, what unfolds is usually rather harrowing…

It's fiction, of course—but that doesn’t mean there’s no truth to it. I recognise that my viewpoint might be darker than most (again, an occupational hazard), but if you ever find yourself in dire straits, I suggest you think twice before putting all your faith in a dear friend, no matter how well you think you know them. We can never truly know how someone might behave in extreme circumstances; we can never completely know our friends.

I’ll leave you to mull on that unsettling thought.

Lexie Elliott graduated from Oxford University, where she obtained a doctorate in theoretical physics. A keen sportswoman, she swam and played waterpolo at university, and later swam the English Channel solo. She works in fund management in London, where she lives with her husband and two sons.

Life Lessons from Growing up on a Farm

by Carolyn Dallman

Faster and faster, my brothers and I tossed hay from upper bins of the loft to the middle bin, then down the chute. The sooner we finished this task, the sooner we could begin jumping from the upper bin to the lower bin, like a trampoline.  Our play started with random jumps, but soon escalated to challenges: side jumps, butt jumps, belly flops, maybe a somersault … until the landing pad became packed solid and touchdowns hurt.

Hard work and hard play went hand-in-hand on our farm in North Freedom, Wisconsin, during the 1950s. This concept was likely instilled in children living in cities during the 1950s as well. However, the differences between living in cities and living on family farms were the unique tasks associated with farm life and experiencing the intricacies of operating a dairy farm. My parents taught these skills to my brothers and me by example, not by telling.

Daily tasks were assigned, but we were expected to adapt to specific situations. For example, the process of feeding our dairy cows changed with the seasons. When pastures were green with grass, cows did not need that forkful of hay at their stanchions. With their bellies full, cows were not inclined to return to the barn twice daily for milking. However, a scoop of ground feed on top of a mound of silage enticed the animals into the barn.

During long Wisconsin winters, huge mounds of hay were needed to supplement the green grass missing from the cows’ diets. (Each animal needed a bathtub full of hay each day.) These changes in feeding our dairy cows did not happen abruptly. Rather, the amount of hay, silage and ground feed were adjusted according to weather conditions. My brothers and I learned how to make these adjustments without directions from dad or mom.

We learned about planting and harvesting. Crops were rotated annually to naturally enrich the soil. I did not fully understand the reasoning behind this until I was in high school, studying earth science and biology.

Nitrogen-rich soil from our legume crops of alfalfa and clover was fertilizer for eventual fields of corn. Alfalfa was planted with oats. Oats grew fast, turning a rich golden color before the summer harvest. This allowed green alfalfa to continue growing in the same field and producing a crop of late summer hay. The following spring alfalfa sprang up to a bright green crop of hay in that same field. It could be harvested as many as three times during the summer. The following spring, that nitrogen-rich soil was tilled and became fertilizer for our newly planted corn.

Our equipment was not new. It worked well enough, but it was not unusual for something to break down. My brothers and I watch as dad did the repair, and we were ready and willing to collect tools that dad might need. Sometimes we were asked to assist with the repair under dad’s watchful eye. I learned how important it is to return tools to their proper place so they would be readily available the next time something broke.

Perseverance and the ability to adapt to unique situations came from those childhood experiences on the farm. I saw dad and mom go through myriad situations where they needed to adapt. I saw their work ethic and the methodical ways they accomplished tasks. They did not explain these things to me. It was a way of life absorbed into me through their examples.

Their examples carried me through coming-of-age moments when I had to stand on my own two feet. It gave me strength through the challenging years of raising a family. It gave me confidence in my professional career.

The diversity of tasks learned on our family farm served as important resources for me and continues to have a positive impact as I celebrate having my debut book, North Freedom, published.

Upon hearing a story of his grandmother’s childhood, Carolyn’s 7-year-old grandson said, “Grandma, you are so lucky. I can’t do those things. Life is different today.” The conversation with her grandson concerned Carolyn. Was the childhood of the baby boomer generation being lost? Could she use childhood memories to preserve the way of life she had experienced?

North Freedom is a collection of over 60 interrelated, nonfiction stories blending a variety of characters, activities and events that dynamically move on the static landscape of the village and the farm.