Daughter of the King

February 15, 2014
A biography of a true Mafia princess that leaves a lot to the imagination, despite assistance from veteran Hollywood chronicler Stadiem (Moneywood: Hollywood in Its Last Age of Excess, 2013, etc.). It's no secret that readers are fascinated by the rich, the famous and the criminal, so it's no surprise that Sandra Lansky, daughter of infamous mob boss Meyer Lansky (1902-1983), has a platform from which to share her story. However, this is no insider's account of the Mafia's heyday. The author, in what seems to be an attempt to protect her father's memory from the stain of organized crime, hasn't just whitewashed the story; she's bleached it. Lansky refers to many of the men in the book as "uncle," but she claims to know little about the machinations of her father and his associates. She does cover the basics: Meyer was in business with all the usual suspects, was intimately involved with gambling, had a hand in Las Vegas and built a resort in Cuba. Unfortunately, the author provides very few details of the business, elements that would make the tale far more intriguing. When she does speak of her father and his associates, she is intent on convincing readers that they were honest businessmen, demonized by a cruel and unfair government. Personal details are in better supply, but even when writing about her sex life, drug use or fear over her father's legal troubles, the narrative is only surface deep. Though she writes about her past truthfully, the prose lacks revelation. Lansky admits candidly that she was spoiled and lived in forced silence, but she writes wistfully, as though she wishes for a life forever frozen in childhood. For a more mature and nuanced look at the life of Meyer Lansky and his family, look elsewhere. A good place to start: Robert Lacey's Little Man (1991).

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March 15, 2014

The child of Mafia kingpin Meyer Lansky and a beautiful but unstable mother, Sandra Lansky grew up amid money, power, and celebrity. She dined in fine restaurants with her father and his mobster friends and partied at the hottest night spots. But wealth and glitz couldn't keep away all of life's tragedies: a severely disabled older brother, a chronically depressed mother, a divorce and her father's subsequent marriage to a despised stepmother, and an addiction to diet pills. Then there were the intimations of violence, including the death of her beloved Uncle Bugsy and the whispers of her father's involvement. She writes about her growing awareness of the crime that surrounded her, coming to terms with her past--and her father's--and settling down to live a happily legal existence. VERDICT Lansky's memoir chronicles an indisputably glamorous life, with some disturbing if understandable denial of the criminal enterprise that enabled it. Captivating reading for fans of celebrity memoirs and true crime.--Deirdre Bray, Middletown P.L., OH

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 1, 2014
Meyer Lansky (190283) looms large in the history of American organized crime. He built a gambling empire, numbered Lucky Luciano and Bugsy Siegel among his friends and partners, and was instrumental in the creation of Las Vegas. He also helped create Murder Incorporated, the assassination arm of the American Mafia. And to Sandi Lansky, he was Daddy. This autobiography tells the story of a rich socialite, a party girl who lived in a world of wealth and glitz (Dean Martin was among her lovers) but whose life was permeated with darkness: a mother suffering from mental illness, a father who wasn't exactly the warmest dad in the world, friends and pseudo-relatives from the criminal world. (She refers to Benjamin Bugsy Siegel as Uncle Benny.) Everything in the bookthe murder of Siegel, the Kefauver Committee hearings into organized crime, her first marriage (when she was still a teenager)is filtered through Sandi's perceptions of her father and his world. It's not a crime story, exactly, but it is a fascinating account of a girl and her father, a man who happened to be a criminal.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)