conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Do you know a description for a book titled The Honored Society about Mafia, Though, Pocket with the genre: Mystery, Thriller & Suspense, Thrillers & Suspense? End with the sentence ' the author's tale is extremely violent, and will prove rough reading for many, but the directness and honesty of its recounting are notable.'.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Though promoted as fiction by the its publisher, Pocket, the author's The Honored Society reads like a memoir, an impression enhanced by the preface from the author's mother, Carmella the author, and by the author's own introduction ("My dad, Vito the author, was a career gangster whose father before him was also a gangster") and author's note. In fact, anyone who knows a bit about the Mafia will recognize the the author name (John Gotti was/is head of the the author Family). This book then seems to be, under the cloak of fiction, the story of the author's rise and fall within the Mob. While it offers a deep insider's view of the Mafia, it provides little that fans of The Godfather, The Sopranos and numerous Mafia memoirs haven't seen or read before. the author's tale is extremely violent, and will prove rough reading for many, but the directness and honesty of its recounting are notable.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Do you know the first three paragraphs for this book?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: The Honored Society
  It was thanks to the Mafia lawyer Rosalba Di Gregorio that Shobha and I met the Mangano women. Up until her death, Rosalba Di Gregorio defended the mafioso Vittorio Mangano, whom the papers called "Berlusconi's stable-keeper" and who had worked for two years in the entrepreneur's villa—and who said nothing of what he knew about Silvio Berlusconi, Marcello Dell'Utri, and many other businessmen, politicians, and lawyers. Right up to his death. It's thanks to Rosalba that Vittorio Mangano was able to die in the arms of his daughters. At least she managed to do that. Even though she'd hoped to get him placed under house arrest.
  It wasn't a chance acquaintance as far as we were concerned: the Mangano women hoped to use a media charm offensive to soften hearts, to ensure that the father's high-security imprisonment was turned into house arrest. Rosalba Di Gregorio always defends, first and foremost, the interests of her clients. The Mafia has known for ages that the struggle can no longer be waged with bombs, but only with leading articles, interviews, and television reports.
  That's why the three daughters and the wife had declared themselves willing to meet us for an interview in her chambers. It was Rosalba Di Gregorio who thought her client's wife and daughters should be given the opportunity to set out their view of things.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Do you know four more paragraphs? Start with the sentence 'Carmine Sarno belongs to one of the city's most powerful Camorra clans'.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Carmine Sarno belongs to one of the city's most powerful Camorra clans. The Sarnos rule in Ponticelli, that peripheral quarter of Naples into which neither tourists nor Neapolitans stray: a landscape of containers, forgotten by the world, a district that consists largely of oil refineries, arterial roads on stilts, warehouses, and potholes. And that is only ever mentioned if another Camorrista is murdered. Or if a gypsy camp is set on fire, as happened that spring, after a gypsy had tried to abduct a child in Ponticelli. For respectable Neapolitans, Ponticelli is a far-off galaxy, its existence known only from the newspapers.
  Carmine represented the best singers in Naples. In his agency, one wall was papered with his stars' posters. They were men whose tattoos crept from their shirt collars, men with pinsharp sideburns who called themselves Alessio or Nello Amato or Maurizio, men at the sight of whom girls in Naples started weeping as hysterically as if the blood of San Gennaro had just liquefied in front of their eyes.
  Unusually, he drank wine, in my honor, although he had just had a serious stomach operation. "To your health, Petra," he said, and straightened the red ruby ring on his right hand—a present from someone thanking him for a favor he had performed. Then Carmine spoke quietly about the benefit concerts that he organizes every year: one for children at Epiphany, and one for the physically handicapped in September.
  At that thought Carmine felt silent, leaving nothing but a feeling of piety and a gentle summer wind that passed through the agency. The breeze drifted over a withered yucca tree, a Padre Pio watching over a keyboard, and a cabaret artist sitting mutely in a corner. He humbly unrolled a poster and tried to excite Carmine about his program, which was guaranteed family fare, simple lyrics, no swearing. He performed with his daughter, who was nine and a half and a natural talent; the act was capable of further development and equally suited to first communions and weddings, to baptisms and confirmations. Then he told a joke from his act. And laughed. Carmine Sarno didn't laugh. He just looked out of the window into the street. And casually returned the greeting of a passing youth. And the cabaret artist rolled his poster back up again.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Do you know the last five paragraphs?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: At last we drive onto the motorway, toward Trapani, toward the Aeroporto Falcone e Borsellino: it's still called that, for how long? On our right the Isola delle Femmine bathes in the morning light. "They have thrown our dreams in the sea, and their own as well."
  I think of Montalbano—Saverio Montalbano, whom I met on my first assignment, the policeman who was once responsible for tracking down fugitive mafiosi as part of the mobile task force, and who discovered the "pizza connection." Recently I met up with him over coffee and biscuits. He looked unchanged, which may have had something to do with the fact that Montalbano, with his bald patch and his silver-gray fringe of hair, had never looked young. The only change was a thin-rimmed pair of reading glasses, over which he looked at me ironically. As always, he asked how I managed to live in a city that consisted only of water. As a respectable Sicilian, he said, he feared the sea.
  Montalbano was on the point of retirement. His last job had been as head of the local police of Termini Imerese. Before that, he had been head of the administrative police of Ragusa; he had been kept as far as possible from Mafia investigations. One day he had received an anonymous letter. In it someone expressed his admiration for him: "I like the real Montalbano better than the one in the film." The letter was signed "Diabolik."
  Salvo carries my case to the check-in desk, where a long line has formed as usual. He kisses me good-bye on both cheeks and expresses his regret at not being able to wait with me, but his ladies need to play their first game of the morning. But he hopes to see me again soon in Palermo. Then he hurries across the departure lounge. Before he steps outside he briefly waves to me again. When I turn around, the very same man who sat next to me on the outbound flight is standing right beside me.
  Shobha (photographer), , , 37–38, , , 52–53, , , , , 69–70, , , , , , 92–93, , 106–107, , , , 159–160, , , , 216–217, 229–230, , , 249–250
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Swap the first and the last sentence.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Shobha (photographer), , , 37–38, , , 52–53, , , , , 69–70, , , , , , 92–93, , 106–107, , , , 159–160, , , , 216–217, 229–230, , , 249–250. "They have thrown our dreams in the sea, and their own as well."
  I think of Montalbano—Saverio Montalbano, whom I met on my first assignment, the policeman who was once responsible for tracking down fugitive mafiosi as part of the mobile task force, and who discovered the "pizza connection." Recently I met up with him over coffee and biscuits. He looked unchanged, which may have had something to do with the fact that Montalbano, with his bald patch and his silver-gray fringe of hair, had never looked young. The only change was a thin-rimmed pair of reading glasses, over which he looked at me ironically. As always, he asked how I managed to live in a city that consisted only of water. As a respectable Sicilian, he said, he feared the sea.
  Montalbano was on the point of retirement. His last job had been as head of the local police of Termini Imerese. Before that, he had been head of the administrative police of Ragusa; he had been kept as far as possible from Mafia investigations. One day he had received an anonymous letter. In it someone expressed his admiration for him: "I like the real Montalbano better than the one in the film." The letter was signed "Diabolik."
  Salvo carries my case to the check-in desk, where a long line has formed as usual. He kisses me good-bye on both cheeks and expresses his regret at not being able to wait with me, but his ladies need to play their first game of the morning. But he hopes to see me again soon in Palermo. Then he hurries across the departure lounge. Before he steps outside he briefly waves to me again. When I turn around, the very same man who sat next to me on the outbound flight is standing right beside me.At last we drive onto the motorway, toward Trapani, toward the Aeroporto Falcone e Borsellino: it's still called that, for how long? On our right the Isola delle Femmine bathes in the morning light.