Mafia Marriage: An Unforgettable Look Inside the Godfather's Own House

by Rosalie Bonanno, Beverly Donofrio

Overview

An Unforgettable Look Inside the Godfather's Own House that Inspired the CBS Miniseries Love, Honor and Obey

She Was A Profaci. He Was A Bonanno.
Rosalie Profaci was a Mafia princess. Salvatore "Bill" Bonanno, oldest son of Mafia Don Joe Bonanno, the real-life model for The Godfather, was organized crime's crown prince. And Bill, deeply involved in his father's "business" of mob schemes thought pretty Rosalie knew what it meant to be a "Mafia wife." But the convent-raised, deeply devout Rosalie, whose innocence was protected by her doting father, had no idea...

Their Marriage United Two Mafia Dynasties...
Mafia Marriage is Rosalie Bonanno's intimate account of life inside the secretive world of the Mafia. Naming names and providing shocking details, she writes about the wild spending sprees, the mysterious absences of her husband, the other women in his life, the running from the law, the abductions, and shootings. Above all, Rosalie reveals the passion that kept her virtually a prisoner to love...and her heartbreaking journey of discovering the truth and trying to break free.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781466820517
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	03/14/2003
Sold by:	Macmillan
Format:	eBook
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	528,592
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Rosalie Bonanno is the daughter of Mafia Boss Joe Profaci. Her marriage to Bill Bonanno, son of Cosa Nostra boss Joseph Bonanno (who inspired The Godfather), was meant to create an alliance between the two families. A "mob war" in the 1960s sent the family into exile in Arizona. Rosalie's memoir, Mafia Marriage, was adapted into the CBS miniseries Love, Honor and Obey.

Beverly Donofrio is a noted memoirist best known for Riding in Cars with Boys, which was adapted into a film of the same name.

Beverly Donofrio is a noted memoirist best known for her bestseller Riding in Cars with Boys, which was adapted into a film of the same name, staring Drew Barrymore. Donofrio also collaborated with mob wife Rosalie Bonanno on Mafia Marriage, which was adapted into the CBS miniseries Love, Honor and Obey.

Editorial Reviews

Rosalie Profaci's marriage to Bill Bonanno in 1956 united two powerful New York Mafia families. Growing up in a protective cocoon, the bride was ignorant of her heritage--``I did not understand, never had understood, and probably never would''--and this made for a difficult marriage. In this sense, her book resembles Antoinette Giancana's Mafia Princess ( LJ 2/15/84), but the latter provides a better sense of Mafia life as a whole. The venerated ``code of silence'' means little to the Bonannos: they were the subject of Gay Talese's Honor Thy Father ( LJ 12/1/71), and family head Joe Bonanno wrote A Man of Honor ( LJ 8/83). Amazingly, Rosalie is still Mrs. Bonanno, despite the belief articulated in her brief, earnest, affecting book that Mafia men are ``rats.'' Appropriate for women's studies and organized crime collections.-- Gregor A. Preston, Univ. of California Lib., Davis

Library Journal