AMY FISHER: MY STORY

by Amy Fisher, Sheila Weller

The Long Island woman who shot Mary Jo Buttafuoco describes how she had an affair with Joey Buttafuoco, worked as a prostitute for Buttafuoco, and how Buttafuoco planned his wife's murder. Reprint.

Genres: True Crime, Nonfiction, Memoir, Biography Memoir, New York, Biography

336 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 1993

Reviews

[Tucker · Rating 2 out of 5]

Professional writer Sheila Weller interviewed the 18-year-old Amy Fisher while Fisher was behind bars in 1993 for an attempted murder she committed as a 17-year-old. Weller paints a sympathetic narrative of a high school girl who was manipulated into prostitution by a sociopathic man twice her age. This narrative may have been valid in 1993, but twenty years later, long since released from prison, Fisher continues to evince some highly questionable behavior of her own, and she is no longer a sympathetic character on any interpretation.

It was an insta-book on a topic of immediate media interest, and the book mentioned at the end that the related trial of Joey Buttafuoco was shortly to occur, but presumably publication could not wait. If one wants to recall the Amy Fisher story – that is, her version of the story – and if you have the flu and are unable to focus on anything else, this is a perfectly fine book. The content of Amy Fisher's epic life fail is probably not something that will change anyone's life for the better.

[Cindy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not the type of thing I normally read. My interest was piqued by reading about Amy in a book called Bitch:In Praise of Difficult Women. Amy was sent to prison for 5 to 15 years for shooting her lover's wife. He walked off scott free. She was 17, he was 35 years old, had an affair with her and got her into prostitution.

[Shelley Diamond · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a cautionary tale for teenage girls who get involved with older men. Beware!

I was not actually interested in reading about Amy Fisher. The only reason I read this book is because I went to school with Joey Buttafuoco and his wife Mary Jo and was curious to read about them. I could never figure out why Mary Jo ever dated, let alone got married to Joey. They had nothing in common in high school. She was a typical nice girl cheerleader type and he was the kind of lazy sleazy guy who is into car mechanics and wears T-shirts with a pack of cigarettes tucked into the rolled up sleeves. Opposites attract, I guess. Well, I'm sure she was later sorry she got involved with him.

I guess she and Amy were just too immature to realize what a jerk Joey was. I don't know. I was only a teenager myself in high school, but it seemed pretty obvious to me that he was the kind of guy you avoid like the plague.

[Jim ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Long Island Lolita. Just a really dumb kid who did a really stupid thing, that a stupid manipulative older man talked her into. Well, he talked her into doing alot of stupid things, but talking her into shooting his wife in the head was the worst.

[Cheryl Lachapelle]

A trashy tale, and a quick read.

[Grace Hudnall]

Was not worth my time. Had to donate the book.

[Alissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I remember my grandpa bought this for me while we were on a Target outing once while I was in high school. I devoured this book in less than a day.

[M · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book in three days. It was great, ha! If you need a book to read on an airplane or something, this is the one.

[David Partikian · Rating 2 out of 5]

Every once in a while, I like to figuratively lick a toilet rim to better understand American culture and have my pessimistic view of it confirmed. In this case, I chose a nostalgic look back at a crime that happened in a Long Island community, Massapequa, a community from which I barely escaped; my parents were both Massapequa natives; my mother grew up in a house about a mile from the front porch where the crime occurred.

My mother wanted to live in the community in which she was raised while my father insisted on raising a family in Manhattan; hence the sorry “Guido culture,” the term actively used by co-author Sheila Weller throughout the book, is familiar to me, but from a distance. Blasts of nostalgia involve a beach club that I was a guest at as a child, a dumpy shopping mall where I was once picked up for shoplifting over the summer, and a duck pond where an aggressive duck caused me to chuck half a loaf of Wonder Bread as a three-year old and then go sobbing into the arms of my mother. Reading this memoir, a cheap piece of exploitative journalism, made me breath a sigh of relief that I indeed was raised in Manhattan and escaped the Bridge & Tunnel nonsense and the sorry, promiscuous high jinks of latchkey suburbanites.


I have no inclination to judge others, despite the harsh descriptors above; compassion is overwhelmed by the sordidness of it all. No inclination to continue a tradition that made the Buttafuoco name a punch line for over a decade. The entire disgraceful affair is just so tragic and indicative of 90’s American suburban culture. Confused youth. Disreputable “adults.” Oblivious and distracted parents in denial. Whatever. . . I have no judgment, just a vague feeling of nausea and depression as I skim through this confession. Nausea and depression over the manner in which this crime became media fodder and sadness for oblivious children and teenagers (and twentysomethings who never grew up) who don’t even have the maturity to understand complicity.

I am certain the crime would be framed differently in the 2020’s, with the exploitation of a minor being front and center, as it should be. However, this is not to excuse culpability. As naïve as Amy Fisher was, her behavior was deplorable regardless of any extenuating circumstances which the co-author wants to delve into. The media was deplorable. And Americans were deplorable for reading all the salacious details and gloating as if they are somehow better than what they read. I am deplorable for revisiting this crime.


The memoir is informative enough, at least in the early parts, and grants a valid glimpse at the socio-economics and culture of Western Long Island and Nassau County as well as details into the escort industry and prostitution on Long Island. However, Amy Fisher is an unreliable and unlikeable narrator. In fact, everyone in the sorry tale is unlikeable. Long Island villains from a lower middle class to counter the hypothetical East Egg upper class villains, Tom and Daisy, in utter callous, narcissistic malevolence. The book becomes entirely unreadable as the crime(s) of which any person of age during the 90’s couldn’t help but absorb information about--even with hands clamped over his or her eyes and ears--become unavoidable through osmosis. Pardon me while I go vomit.

[Edelgoku · Rating 3 out of 5]

what can I say... I bought this book during a sale and I told myself that I will finish it no matter what... but I can't. I just can't. You know how someone told you to write a book but then you were too obnoxious so they have to add this and that... it feels like Amy wrote all the obnoxious detail of her prostitute life and then Sheila has to edit a little to make it sound like a victim. ugh, it's honestly gross. there were even details of the affair that is just like if you truly are resentful and a complete victim, why write this book that will surely hurt Joey's children?????? Like why? money. of course. money is Amy's master, it's sad but she is not entirely hopeless. she knows what she did wrong, I just hope she realizes that.

Looking at the other reviews, I'm glad I tossed the book.

[Rotosca Gray · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a very quick read. I watched the movie years ago & just decided to read! This is an overall sad story & I feel sorry Amy because, Joey really preyed on this teenager & got no time for doing it!

I do feel Amy is a victim, but so is Mary Jo, this lady seemed to be lost as to what her husband was really doing behind her back. This resulted in her being shot. I would have liked to hear more about how remorseful Amy was, she never went into details (Not saying she was or wasn’t). She also talked about how others should have gotten prison time, such as Jane, but honey you pulled the trigger, no one but you.

I do realize she was still very young when this book was written. I’ll be googling her & Mary Jo because i would like to know how they are today.

[Juanita · Rating 4 out of 5]

A classic case of "he said /she said", but regardless of that, a salient warning on the importance of REALLY being there for your kids. It's so VERY easy as a young woman to be blinded by your first "love". I think it should be mandatory reading for all girls from 12 years of age (depending on their level of "maturity".)

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book offers a glimpse of Amy's naivete when it came to attention from older men. You can't help but feel bad for 1992 Amy, but a Google search of Amy after her release from prison and beyond really shows that she is still looking for that acceptance in all the wrong places. Even more disturbing is her reuniting with Buttafuoco many years later for television.

[Amber · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm glad I bought this book at Goodwill. It is a complete waste of money. I am not kidding when I say that I read only the first page and then skimmed the next few pages. What I got from this book is an obsessive account of her lover's activities and mentions of her life as a whore. I thought I might give the book a chance, I mean maybe there was things that everyone was unaware of when it comes to this case.With only me reading the first few pages however, I can see that this book is nothing but the psychotic, obsessive, babbling of a whore and a liar. I hope others will take my advice and not waste their time or money on this book, don't give Amy Fisher what she wants: more attention and infamy at the expense of her lover's marriage and quality of life of her lover's wife.

[Anne]

I read this?

[Sharon Curtis · Rating 5 out of 5]

WOw! I read this such a long time ago. I think this pretty much signed it in blood for me that this girl was really telling the truth. I enjoyed every page. She was detailed and to the point. She didn't sugar coat any part of her life. Must read. Looking to read it again. Team Amy