This Thing of Ours

March 1, 2012

Franzese wanted to be a professional dancer. Little did she know that she'd travel back and forth across the country, not on tour, but to visit her husband, Michael, behind bars. At first thinking he was in prison for white-collar crimes, Franzese realized only later that he was sentenced for his involvement with the Colombo crime family. Here she tells the story of why her husband quit the mob: his love for his wife and their shared Evangelical faith. Interspersed between her retelling of events, she shares her perspective on how her faith helped her keep her family together. VERDICT While Franzese's story is unique, she fails to explore in real depth how faith saved her marriage and family. The majority of the book focuses on the order of events in her life rather than on how she handled those obstacles. Readers hear little of her internal struggles and the day-to-day trials. Of possible interest to those looking for stories of how faith can change lives, but this book's unpolished writing and inconsistent tone make it easy to skip.--Ryan Claringbole, Chesapeake P.L., VA

Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 15, 2012
After years of watching Mafia figures on television and movie screens or reading about them in the pages of dog-eared novels, many of us think we know what goes on behind the scenes in a married-to-the-Mob scenario. Think again. In this readable and sympathetic look at a Mob marriage, Cammy Franzese explains how she, a young dancer barely out of her teens, met mobsterfilm producer Michael Franzese on a movie setappropriately enough, a dance musical involving a street gangwithout knowing much about his colorful background. When he was arrested in the summer of 1984 on seven counts of loan-sharking and racketeering, she had no idea what the charges meant. Indeed, by the end of the year he had proposed to her, and they had married the following year. How a devout small-town Christian girl fell in love with a New York mobster has all the makings of a Hollywood blockbuster. The difference being that this is a true story written with a winning combination of naivete and anger by someone who lived through it. A tale of endurance and faith (they remain married to each other), this should be of particular interest to Christian and women's organizations as well as prison ministries.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)