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The Family Hightower
*** Named a Kirkus Reviews Starred Title in Their 10/01/14 Issue ***
In 1968 two boys are born into a large family, both named for their grandfather, Peter Henry Hightower. One boy—Peter—grows up in Africa and ends up a journalist in Granada. The other—Petey—becomes a minor criminal, first in Cleveland and then in Kiev. In 1995, Petey runs afoul of his associates and disappears. But the criminals, bent on revenge, track down the wrong cousin, and the Peter in Granada finds himself on the run. He bounces from one family member to the next, piecing together his cousin's involvement in international crime while learning the truth about his family's complicated history. Along the way the original Peter Henry Hightower's story is revealed, until it catches up with that of his children, revealing how Peter and Petey have been living in their grandfather's shadow all along.
The novel takes a look at capitalism and organized crime in the 20th century, the legend of the self-made man, and what money can do to people. Like Jeffrey Eugenides' Middlesex, The Family Hightower stretches across both generations and continents, bearing the weight of family secrets and the inevitable personal toll they take on loved ones despite our best intentions.
In 1968 two boys are born into a large family, both named for their grandfather, Peter Henry Hightower. One boy—Peter—grows up in Africa and ends up a journalist in Granada. The other—Petey—becomes a minor criminal, first in Cleveland and then in Kiev. In 1995, Petey runs afoul of his associates and disappears. But the criminals, bent on revenge, track down the wrong cousin, and the Peter in Granada finds himself on the run. He bounces from one family member to the next, piecing together his cousin's involvement in international crime while learning the truth about his family's complicated history. Along the way the original Peter Henry Hightower's story is revealed, until it catches up with that of his children, revealing how Peter and Petey have been living in their grandfather's shadow all along.
The novel takes a look at capitalism and organized crime in the 20th century, the legend of the self-made man, and what money can do to people. Like Jeffrey Eugenides' Middlesex, The Family Hightower stretches across both generations and continents, bearing the weight of family secrets and the inevitable personal toll they take on loved ones despite our best intentions.
336 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2014
506 people want to read
About the author
Brian Francis Slattery
56 books99 followersEditor, reporter, musician, and writer living just outside of New Haven, CT.
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Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews
September 12, 2014
"Every story is a kind of violence perpetrated on the facts..." "Some stories, the job is so clean, everything's arranged along an arc so bright that you can't see the carnage that went into making it."
How many books have been written about the rags to riches American Dream? The quest to succeed is a classic theme of literature, and this story is a realistic portrayal of chasing that dream. Many American dreams began across borders, in third world countries, such as Eastern Europe. The struggle to leave communism and embrace capitalism is one of bloodshed. Slattery's story takes us through the harsh Ukrainian and Romanian existence of the 20th century, before and after Stalin, and to South Side (Tremont) Cleveland, where much of the novel takes place.
"It's the market for violence, and we're all involved: the mob, legitimate businesses, all of us. It's all for the money."
First, there's the narrator, whose voice is frank and informal. It is a let-me-tell-you-like-it-is kind of voice, one that lures you into the hundred-year history of the Hightowers, and their rise to wealth through organized crime. The patriarch, the original Peter Henry Hightower, was born Petro Garko in the mean streets of Cleveland, the son of Ukrainian immigrants. He eventually becomes a wealthy bootlegger, but his crimes don't stop there. And they didn't start without bloodshed. That is what this book illustrates--not just the sins of the father that get passed on, but what most wealth was made of, specifically early 20th century wealth in America. It wasn't just steel and railroads. There is blood on everyone's hands, no matter how removed from the direct violence. In the mid-nineties, the head is the White Lady, who doesn't pick up an instrument more lethal than a pen, an accounting book, or a phone. But, she profits in the crimes--of drugs, human trafficking, and organ harvesting.
As the jacket blurb states, it is the story (partly) of two cousins born in different countries in the same year, 1968, with the same name, after their grandfather. Peter Hightower, son of Rufus, is a journalist in Granada, who has had a childhood of following his father on the lam--Cape Town, Harare, Lagos, Cairo, among others-- but not comprehending what it was all about. The other Peter, called Petey, son of hippie Muriel, was born in Cleveland, and segued into petty, and then organized crime, becoming a big shot like his grandfather. But, now his own sins are chasing him down, and, due to the mix-up of names, it is Peter, the honest journalist, who is on the run from assassins.
Peter's father helps him get to America, to Cleveland, where he goes to search for answers about the history of his family. His aunts, Sylvie and Muriel, and his Uncle Henry, all have secrets, and Peter aims to get to the truth.
My ancestors were Ukrainian, and I have read through some of the terror that they endured in their poverty and powerlessness under violent regimes. Slattery brings the Soviet Union to life, in all its graphic horror. Although many of the characterizations (including main characters) are fairly stock, the beautiful Romanian journalist, Madalina, is a gripping presence in the story. You know of her brutal fate from her introduction, yet her morale and spirit are so strong that I found myself believing that she might be saved. She was a strong moral center, as was Peter.
This isn't a novel that you read for the characters, although they all have a part to play in illuminating the truth of how wealth is born and borne. You read this book for the chase, partly, but primarily for the themes of the self-made man and how the historical pursuit of affluence contains so much ruin. And you turn the pages learning of the savage consequences of conquest. Do the Hightowers flourish in the end? Are the descendants ensured safety--or will they be buried in their ancestor's crimes? The hydra-head of organized crime dominated the roots of our culture, and continues to rule the global economy. Slattery does a fantastic job of weaving it into the history of prosperity for the privileged few, and the widespread suffering of many.
"Some of the people, in America and elsewhere, want to turn around; there must be a way back...to climb up the rim as its moving downward beneath them. Some of them are turning and facing it, to prepare their children for the harder world that's coming...How the people around them will become more vulnerable, more desperate...And...where they need to be to profit from it."
3.5 rounded up
How many books have been written about the rags to riches American Dream? The quest to succeed is a classic theme of literature, and this story is a realistic portrayal of chasing that dream. Many American dreams began across borders, in third world countries, such as Eastern Europe. The struggle to leave communism and embrace capitalism is one of bloodshed. Slattery's story takes us through the harsh Ukrainian and Romanian existence of the 20th century, before and after Stalin, and to South Side (Tremont) Cleveland, where much of the novel takes place.
"It's the market for violence, and we're all involved: the mob, legitimate businesses, all of us. It's all for the money."
First, there's the narrator, whose voice is frank and informal. It is a let-me-tell-you-like-it-is kind of voice, one that lures you into the hundred-year history of the Hightowers, and their rise to wealth through organized crime. The patriarch, the original Peter Henry Hightower, was born Petro Garko in the mean streets of Cleveland, the son of Ukrainian immigrants. He eventually becomes a wealthy bootlegger, but his crimes don't stop there. And they didn't start without bloodshed. That is what this book illustrates--not just the sins of the father that get passed on, but what most wealth was made of, specifically early 20th century wealth in America. It wasn't just steel and railroads. There is blood on everyone's hands, no matter how removed from the direct violence. In the mid-nineties, the head is the White Lady, who doesn't pick up an instrument more lethal than a pen, an accounting book, or a phone. But, she profits in the crimes--of drugs, human trafficking, and organ harvesting.
As the jacket blurb states, it is the story (partly) of two cousins born in different countries in the same year, 1968, with the same name, after their grandfather. Peter Hightower, son of Rufus, is a journalist in Granada, who has had a childhood of following his father on the lam--Cape Town, Harare, Lagos, Cairo, among others-- but not comprehending what it was all about. The other Peter, called Petey, son of hippie Muriel, was born in Cleveland, and segued into petty, and then organized crime, becoming a big shot like his grandfather. But, now his own sins are chasing him down, and, due to the mix-up of names, it is Peter, the honest journalist, who is on the run from assassins.
Peter's father helps him get to America, to Cleveland, where he goes to search for answers about the history of his family. His aunts, Sylvie and Muriel, and his Uncle Henry, all have secrets, and Peter aims to get to the truth.
My ancestors were Ukrainian, and I have read through some of the terror that they endured in their poverty and powerlessness under violent regimes. Slattery brings the Soviet Union to life, in all its graphic horror. Although many of the characterizations (including main characters) are fairly stock, the beautiful Romanian journalist, Madalina, is a gripping presence in the story. You know of her brutal fate from her introduction, yet her morale and spirit are so strong that I found myself believing that she might be saved. She was a strong moral center, as was Peter.
This isn't a novel that you read for the characters, although they all have a part to play in illuminating the truth of how wealth is born and borne. You read this book for the chase, partly, but primarily for the themes of the self-made man and how the historical pursuit of affluence contains so much ruin. And you turn the pages learning of the savage consequences of conquest. Do the Hightowers flourish in the end? Are the descendants ensured safety--or will they be buried in their ancestor's crimes? The hydra-head of organized crime dominated the roots of our culture, and continues to rule the global economy. Slattery does a fantastic job of weaving it into the history of prosperity for the privileged few, and the widespread suffering of many.
"Some of the people, in America and elsewhere, want to turn around; there must be a way back...to climb up the rim as its moving downward beneath them. Some of them are turning and facing it, to prepare their children for the harder world that's coming...How the people around them will become more vulnerable, more desperate...And...where they need to be to profit from it."
3.5 rounded up
September 26, 2014
I must mention that I was able to win this book on Goodreads online give away. I enjoyed the book greatly it really painted the criminal life well and shows how it infects the family. The flow of the characters was genius as the author was able to constantly go through-out the eyes and actions of the characters blending them together in the story. I got so hooked instantly as turn over each page relating to all the fear and determination for survival the Hightower family has. The part of the story I loved the most was reading and enjoying the unfolding relationship of Rufus and his son Peter. The conversion between this two is always so intense you cant help but have the same swirling of emotion swirling inside you as they do.
read_partial
March 18, 2024Decided to not continue further with the book. Read through chapter 4, to page 93, about 28% done. I wasn't enjoying the book, with no attachment to any of the characters, I really don't care what happens to this family, apparently all are mixed up as a crime organization of some sort. And I really didn't enjoy the writing style of the book either.
There are way too many other books out there for me to spend time with, so moving on.
There are way too many other books out there for me to spend time with, so moving on.
August 15, 2014
I received this book from the goodreads giveaway.
This was certainly an interesting book and left me thinking what are the chances of something like that happening? The Family Hightower is novel about two young men in the same family with exact same name, Peter Hightower. One of the Peters ends up getting stuck in a situation that causes the other Peter to get dragged into the situation by mix up of name. Thus begins our story and follows the two Peters to the ending resolution. I liked the characters quite a bit; I didn't think I would. Some of their situations seemed a little far fetched but at the same time still believable. You end up caring about the characters as well, even when you're have mixed feelings about the characters. The one thing I really loved about this book is the writing style. The story is told in a narrator type way that makes it feel like it's being told by mouth. I enjoyed it because it felt like there was someone sitting right next to me telling me this story. This was all in all a very good read and I recommend this to everyone.
This was certainly an interesting book and left me thinking what are the chances of something like that happening? The Family Hightower is novel about two young men in the same family with exact same name, Peter Hightower. One of the Peters ends up getting stuck in a situation that causes the other Peter to get dragged into the situation by mix up of name. Thus begins our story and follows the two Peters to the ending resolution. I liked the characters quite a bit; I didn't think I would. Some of their situations seemed a little far fetched but at the same time still believable. You end up caring about the characters as well, even when you're have mixed feelings about the characters. The one thing I really loved about this book is the writing style. The story is told in a narrator type way that makes it feel like it's being told by mouth. I enjoyed it because it felt like there was someone sitting right next to me telling me this story. This was all in all a very good read and I recommend this to everyone.
August 21, 2014
The Family Hightower is the story of two cousins who are both coincidentially named after their grandfather. The story starts with their births and brings us to their adulthood where we learn how they turned out. One pretty much on the straight and narrow. The other is a thug. The bad cousin sets off a chain of events that impacts the whole family and many others. Oh and the Hightower clan has been involved in organized crime for years. The cousins find out about this the hard way. The author walks us through the family's history and brings us up to date with the current situation. I loved how the current head of the family gets them out. I like any story where women are total bad asses so this worked for me. I thought Petey got off light.
I found this book to be very interesting and enjoyed the writing style.
I found this book to be very interesting and enjoyed the writing style.
September 4, 2014
Per FTC regulations, I received this book as a giveaway in the GoodReads First Reads program.
This story started a little slow, but picked up with all kinds of intrigue and Godfather-esque characters. My favorite part was the story of Petro Garko and his journey from rags to riches in all the wrong ways. Very enjoyable to read and I liked the author's style to talking to the reader like he is sharing a secret. Almost like Peter Henry Hightower did write his book afterall.
This story started a little slow, but picked up with all kinds of intrigue and Godfather-esque characters. My favorite part was the story of Petro Garko and his journey from rags to riches in all the wrong ways. Very enjoyable to read and I liked the author's style to talking to the reader like he is sharing a secret. Almost like Peter Henry Hightower did write his book afterall.
September 26, 2014
A surprisingly great book. Two cousins share the same name of their grandfather, a man who became a prime mover in Cleveland. The sins of the grandfather are ultimately visited upon on the cousins and many other people. Reminiscent of The Godfather, perhaps more succinct. Plus the book is an interesting look at Cleveland, America and capitalism.
December 16, 2024
A few weeks ago I finished watching The Sopranos for the 3rd time and had an intense urge to just start rewatching it all over again right away, but then I figured out I could maybe read a book similar to the show, so Reddit recommended The Family Hightower as the closest thing to The Sopranos. Well, ok, one Redditor recommended it. And no, it’s nothing like The Sopranos. The premise had so much potential: family intrigue, crime, and a narrative that promised to span generations and continents. In 1968, two boys are born into the sprawling Hightower family, both bearing the name of their grandfather, Peter Henry Hightower. Their lives diverge wildly: Peter grows up in Africa, becoming a journalist in Granada, while Petey’s path takes him into the shadowy world of minor crime, first in Cleveland and later in Kiev. Suddenly thrust into chaos, Peter finds himself on the run, hunted for crimes he never committed. As he weaves from one family member to another, Peter unravels the tangled web of Petey’s criminal entanglements and stumbles upon his family’s buried truths.
At the heart of it all lies the legacy of the original Peter Henry Hightower, whose story gradually emerges, revealing the ways it has shaped his descendants’ lives and left them wrestling with the shadows of ambition, betrayal, and survival. Let me tell you right away - there are WAY TOO MANY characters in this book. I want to read something that’s easy to follow, not some mafia James Joyce shit. Some would say this is good, because it makes the story “intense”, but for me, this just comes off as overly indulgent and convoluted. Instead of drawing me into the story, it pushed me away, making it hard to connect with the characters or follow the plot. I rarely leave books unfinished, but I came very close with this one. While I respect what the author was attempting, The Family Hightower ultimately left me frustrated and disappointed, to the point that I wanted to contact him personally and ask him if he’s ok.
At the heart of it all lies the legacy of the original Peter Henry Hightower, whose story gradually emerges, revealing the ways it has shaped his descendants’ lives and left them wrestling with the shadows of ambition, betrayal, and survival. Let me tell you right away - there are WAY TOO MANY characters in this book. I want to read something that’s easy to follow, not some mafia James Joyce shit. Some would say this is good, because it makes the story “intense”, but for me, this just comes off as overly indulgent and convoluted. Instead of drawing me into the story, it pushed me away, making it hard to connect with the characters or follow the plot. I rarely leave books unfinished, but I came very close with this one. While I respect what the author was attempting, The Family Hightower ultimately left me frustrated and disappointed, to the point that I wanted to contact him personally and ask him if he’s ok.
February 28, 2019
A sweeping, yet ironically concise, novel from award-winning writer, Brian Francis Slattery, follows the Hightower family through decades of organized crime and family drama. Set in Cleveland and Eastern Europe and spanning a century, this tale of family deceit serves as a mirror of the story of America in adolescence with characters full of anger, longing and hope but rooted in what’s possible within their given circumstances. Slattery is a gifted writer of incredible insight and magnificent research skills – I learned more about a century of world events and organized crime than I ever thought I’d know. Fascinating and worth the read.
July 1, 2023
Beautifully detailed and gruesome. It is slow-paced but i like the building and the finale and yes the author does deliver blood. Recommended for every animanga Monster enjoyer.
May 11, 2015
Every story's a kind of violence perpetrated on the facts. You cut off their arms and legs, stretch them out, break their ribs until they fit where you think they're supposed to. All of it in search of meaning. Some stories, the job is so clean, everything's arranged along an arc so bright that you can't see the carnage that went into making it.
But this story isn't like that. There is blood everywhere, pieces all around us. There are so many people involved: the Hightower family and all the people they touched, all the people they hurt. People and politics and history, of the family and four countries. This means we have to move around a lot. If you're looking for the kind of story where you follow one person from beginning to end, and the clock ticks forward, sentence after sentence—well, it's not going to go like that around here. You won't be confused at the end, you'll know everything then, I promise. But where do we start?
After mainlining a lot of sparsely-written young adult fiction, I consciously chose to pick up Slattery's latest because I was familiar with his style, and knew that's what I wanted next: I wanted the lyrical descriptions and rambling sentences, his tendency to hop between perspectives, explore tangents about people's past and present and future, leap across entire continents -- and that's exactly what The Family Hightower delivers, all anchored around the tale of a Ukrainian-American criminal dynasty, spanning between Cleveland and Europe. The novel explores what happens when the old way of organised crime (mafias and family business, loyalty and personal investment, everyone knows everyone) meets the new clinical system (cold, impersonal, no one knows anyone or the full details of what they're actually involved in). The myth of the self-made man ends up caught between their teeth, and the Hightowers must eventually take a hit, their foundations rattling from a misunderstanding of mistaken identity between two cousins, both named after the grandfather who made his fortune for the family: Peter Henry Hightower.
I really liked this book! It probably still doesn't beat out my other personal Slattery favourite (Liberation), but I'm really into crime & crime families so this was way up my alley. The middle of the book takes a detour into covering how the patriarch rose to prominence, but I think I was more into the modern-day sections: examining the fallout, the repercussions of everything Peter set in motion, how his children picked up the pieces and inherited things from him, whether his money or aspects of his personality, his capacity for violence and cunning. Slattery's evocation of setting was so rich; oddly, though, I had a little less patience for the descriptive tangents here, because I guess I'm an awful person who is more interested in the descriptions of a post-apocalyptic environment than Cleveland... but either way, the picture is immensely detailed and rich.
The story at the heart of it is blood, the endless cycle of crime and capitalism grinding you down, and when the wheel of fortune is too tempting to get out of. The Hightowers themselves are fascinating, each one drastically different from the other, each one vividly-painted -- my favourites are split somewhere between Sylvie, Henry, and Rufus, and I was really, utterly emotionally invested in Rufus' relationship with his son, ugh. Plus, I love queenpin characters, I love them so much. The ending is great.
I might type up more quotes later, once I fish out my hardcover at home.
June 24, 2015
For decades, authors have told the story of the American dream, of the young man turning his rags into riches, but none have done so quite like Brian Francis Slattery. His recent novel, “The Family Hightower“, follows generations of a family sewn together with threads of deceit, violence, and, most importantly, staggering wealth. With brilliant savagery at the heart of his tale, Slattery reveals each character’s desires to leave the past of poverty, of crime, of violence, or of the disappointment of the family name and their willingness to commit whatever act it takes to do so.
“The Family Hightower” flows through history, characters, and countries fluidly, gracefully jumping from one Peter Henry Hightower to the next, from the Ukrainian famine to the Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run and from Kiev to Cleveland.
Blood reigns throughout the tale: a young girl, Madalina, enters the stage as a corpse whose internal organs and eyes have been removed; scumbag Joe Rizzi, plans to dismember and scatter the body of the young daughter of the man he attempts to blackmail; a Ukrainian boy from the South Side of Cleveland quickly learns the ways of the mob and slits the throat of his first boss.
Slattery spins his story around brutality, guile, and crime on an international and local level, his characters’ decisions beating against each other with blunt force and slicing through ties of loyalty like a razor against an unguarded artery.
With quick, clever pacing and a superb narrative voice of reason, Slattery combines history, grisly crime, family ties, and the money that spurs it all along. Smart, insightful, satisfying, exceptional—a tale that captures the attention and holds it down with a loaded pistol, worried only about spilling blood on its lavish Italian shoes.
Reviewer: Summer Starkie lives to write and hopes to one day write to live. When she is not staying up all night to reach a word count for a paper or for NaNoWriMo, a national novel writing group, she works for the International Model United Nations Association or makes quilts with her mom.
Killer Nashville's Review of The Family Hightower
Killer Nashville's Past Book Reviews
“The Family Hightower” flows through history, characters, and countries fluidly, gracefully jumping from one Peter Henry Hightower to the next, from the Ukrainian famine to the Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run and from Kiev to Cleveland.
Blood reigns throughout the tale: a young girl, Madalina, enters the stage as a corpse whose internal organs and eyes have been removed; scumbag Joe Rizzi, plans to dismember and scatter the body of the young daughter of the man he attempts to blackmail; a Ukrainian boy from the South Side of Cleveland quickly learns the ways of the mob and slits the throat of his first boss.
Slattery spins his story around brutality, guile, and crime on an international and local level, his characters’ decisions beating against each other with blunt force and slicing through ties of loyalty like a razor against an unguarded artery.
With quick, clever pacing and a superb narrative voice of reason, Slattery combines history, grisly crime, family ties, and the money that spurs it all along. Smart, insightful, satisfying, exceptional—a tale that captures the attention and holds it down with a loaded pistol, worried only about spilling blood on its lavish Italian shoes.
Reviewer: Summer Starkie lives to write and hopes to one day write to live. When she is not staying up all night to reach a word count for a paper or for NaNoWriMo, a national novel writing group, she works for the International Model United Nations Association or makes quilts with her mom.
Killer Nashville's Review of The Family Hightower
Killer Nashville's Past Book Reviews
February 19, 2015
The Family Hightower takes a savage and intelligent look at the American Dream, asserting an inextricable link between capitalism and crime in a voice that borders on the eternal. Appropriate, considering the timeless and unattainable aspiration of Brian Francis Slattery’s characters: to “get out”, to escape the prison of wealth and violence and guilt into which they’ve been cast owing to the sins of patriarch Peter Henry Hightower.
A simple overview starts in the present with the namesake grandsons. Peter, the journalist at the moral center, positioned to uncover dark family secrets; Petey, adrift on the fringe, willful participant in ever-deepening criminal enterprise, from peddling dope to minors in Cleveland to financing the human organ harvest in Eastern Europe. The crimes that propel their action have roots in prohibition, three-quarters of a century earlier, with their bootlegging grandfather. In between, the unfulfilled middle generation of siblings haunted by the violent, criminal secrets to their father’s success: Uncle Henry, both legitimately wealthy and criminally complicit; the steely Aunt Sylvie who takes over her father’s empire; parents Rufus and Muriel, the former on the run from his family history, the latter paralyzed by it; and the institutionalized Aunt Jackie, a crippled emblem of her family’s poisoned legacy.
Through these eight characters, and a good many more, Slattery’s keen omniscience delivers the crime story of a century, the pulse of which beats out from the 1947 welterweight bout between Sugar Ray Robinson and Jimmy Doyle. Ringside, a rival mobster threatens Peter Henry with blackmail. All around, twelve thousand souls scream in hunger for blood. Untouchable criminals threatening each other; the soiled masses howling in praise of wealth and power. “It’s the market for violence,” the narrator reports, “and we’re all involved: the mob, legitimate businesses, all of us. It’s all for the money. People don’t want to see a man die, but they do want to see a fight, and they pay to see it.” Slattery’s book delivers the fight, and the grim details that make men rich off unbridled passion for violence.
Read full review at https://benonbooks.wordpress.com/fict...
A simple overview starts in the present with the namesake grandsons. Peter, the journalist at the moral center, positioned to uncover dark family secrets; Petey, adrift on the fringe, willful participant in ever-deepening criminal enterprise, from peddling dope to minors in Cleveland to financing the human organ harvest in Eastern Europe. The crimes that propel their action have roots in prohibition, three-quarters of a century earlier, with their bootlegging grandfather. In between, the unfulfilled middle generation of siblings haunted by the violent, criminal secrets to their father’s success: Uncle Henry, both legitimately wealthy and criminally complicit; the steely Aunt Sylvie who takes over her father’s empire; parents Rufus and Muriel, the former on the run from his family history, the latter paralyzed by it; and the institutionalized Aunt Jackie, a crippled emblem of her family’s poisoned legacy.
Through these eight characters, and a good many more, Slattery’s keen omniscience delivers the crime story of a century, the pulse of which beats out from the 1947 welterweight bout between Sugar Ray Robinson and Jimmy Doyle. Ringside, a rival mobster threatens Peter Henry with blackmail. All around, twelve thousand souls scream in hunger for blood. Untouchable criminals threatening each other; the soiled masses howling in praise of wealth and power. “It’s the market for violence,” the narrator reports, “and we’re all involved: the mob, legitimate businesses, all of us. It’s all for the money. People don’t want to see a man die, but they do want to see a fight, and they pay to see it.” Slattery’s book delivers the fight, and the grim details that make men rich off unbridled passion for violence.
Read full review at https://benonbooks.wordpress.com/fict...
August 6, 2017
First I must note that the copy I read was an Advanced Uncorrected Proof that I received last year at Book Con. I'm reading the books I received then before I attend this year's Book Con at the end of the month.
Part one of the book was really thrilling and mysterious. I quickly found myself rooting for the good Peter Henry Hightower cousin.
Part two, did give great insight into the family history but it also slowed down the story for me. I had put the book down for more than a week before I picked it up again and powered through to finish. Which then made part three, that was back in the present day of part one, feel a bit anti-climatic. I thought there would be more of a suspenseful chase but the set up events made everything work out smoothly. Still, the characters are well developed and evoke emotion from the reader. Like I said, I rooted for (the good) Peter, I even rooted for Sylvie, thought Petey was a naive, selfish, idiot, felt so bad for Madalina and her parents.
The writing style is very descriptive as the author speaks directly to the reader. The narration at times is more told then shown. Often the dialogue is not in quotes but just a reference in italics. Sometimes the sentence are rambling and go off on tangents, or skip between past, present and future. However, it all comes together and makes sense in the end.
There is a lot of well researched history; history of Cleveland, African nations, Ukraine and the Soviet Union, . One historic moment I especially liked was the Sugar Ray Robinson-Jimmy Doyle fight because of the way it symbolically tied in with the threat old PHH gets.
Overall it was a good historical fiction like story of a dysfunctional family and the disgusting life of organized crime.
3.5 out 5 Namesakes.
Part one of the book was really thrilling and mysterious. I quickly found myself rooting for the good Peter Henry Hightower cousin.
Part two, did give great insight into the family history but it also slowed down the story for me. I had put the book down for more than a week before I picked it up again and powered through to finish. Which then made part three, that was back in the present day of part one, feel a bit anti-climatic. I thought there would be more of a suspenseful chase but the set up events made everything work out smoothly. Still, the characters are well developed and evoke emotion from the reader. Like I said, I rooted for (the good) Peter, I even rooted for Sylvie, thought Petey was a naive, selfish, idiot, felt so bad for Madalina and her parents.
The writing style is very descriptive as the author speaks directly to the reader. The narration at times is more told then shown. Often the dialogue is not in quotes but just a reference in italics. Sometimes the sentence are rambling and go off on tangents, or skip between past, present and future. However, it all comes together and makes sense in the end.
There is a lot of well researched history; history of Cleveland, African nations, Ukraine and the Soviet Union, . One historic moment I especially liked was the Sugar Ray Robinson-Jimmy Doyle fight because of the way it symbolically tied in with the threat old PHH gets.
Overall it was a good historical fiction like story of a dysfunctional family and the disgusting life of organized crime.
3.5 out 5 Namesakes.
November 3, 2015
I won a free copy of this ARC from Goodreads. Thank you!
I enjoyed this book, which surprised me, as crime fiction isn't a genre I'm usually drawn to. The style of narration was interesting, kind of a, "Let me paint this picture for you," type of thing, and it gave the book a more cinematic feel, like there was a voice over happening over the visuals of these gangsters. Almost like a Guy Ritchie film, I would say.
Parts of the story are very, very dark and gruesome, but nothing so gory that I wanted to stop reading. None of the characters are particularly deep or nuanced, but they are interesting. I did feel that dropping the original Peter Henry Hightower's story in the middle of the story of his grandsons was an odd choice. It really pulls you out of the first part of the story. I thought I was going to be reading about the "good" PHH on the run, but instead I read about how his grandfather rose to wealth and power. Well, okay...but then I feel like the book's description is a little misleading. Plus, the "good" PHH doesn't really seem to be in that much danger while he's on the run, until the very end, and then that wraps up quickly. It was a bit anticlimactic.
Anyway, like I said, I did enjoy this book overall and I would certainly recommend it. The writing was excellent and the story is entertaining.
I enjoyed this book, which surprised me, as crime fiction isn't a genre I'm usually drawn to. The style of narration was interesting, kind of a, "Let me paint this picture for you," type of thing, and it gave the book a more cinematic feel, like there was a voice over happening over the visuals of these gangsters. Almost like a Guy Ritchie film, I would say.
Parts of the story are very, very dark and gruesome, but nothing so gory that I wanted to stop reading. None of the characters are particularly deep or nuanced, but they are interesting. I did feel that dropping the original Peter Henry Hightower's story in the middle of the story of his grandsons was an odd choice. It really pulls you out of the first part of the story. I thought I was going to be reading about the "good" PHH on the run, but instead I read about how his grandfather rose to wealth and power. Well, okay...but then I feel like the book's description is a little misleading. Plus, the "good" PHH doesn't really seem to be in that much danger while he's on the run, until the very end, and then that wraps up quickly. It was a bit anticlimactic.
Anyway, like I said, I did enjoy this book overall and I would certainly recommend it. The writing was excellent and the story is entertaining.
October 14, 2014
While this novel bears the typical Slattery flourishes (sweeping story told from multiple perspectives, descriptions of parties and jam sessions involving folk instruments lasting until all hours of the night, economic collapse) it abandons his other three books' speculative fiction premises for a crime narrative that bears more resemblance to Chabon or Lethem than sf greats. It manages to feel like somewhat of a new direction, and while not every turn feels as satisfying as it could (Slattery purposely veers away from many of the magic realist coincidences and cartoonish action plots of his previous books) and the editing managed to miss some annoying errors in sentence structure and grammar, it's a worthwhile read, and as splattered in blood as it promises to be. I'll be waiting patiently for his fifth book.
February 10, 2015
Everybody's got secrets. Some people's secrets are just a little more dangerous than others. The setting is Cleveland. The story is the Hightower family, and their rise in several endeavors, most notably the criminal world. We start with 2 cousins, both of whom bear the same name, and that starts a twisted path of who did what to whom and for how much. Can they overcome the family's past? Do they want to? How much will it cost?
I thought this story was really well told - and I mean told. The author uses a very conversational tone, as if he were spinning you a tale after dinner one night, rather than writing a novel. He did a good job of keeping all the players separate, which made it easier to follow and remember who was who and how they were related to each other and interacted over the course of the decades covered in the book.
Definitely worth a read!
I thought this story was really well told - and I mean told. The author uses a very conversational tone, as if he were spinning you a tale after dinner one night, rather than writing a novel. He did a good job of keeping all the players separate, which made it easier to follow and remember who was who and how they were related to each other and interacted over the course of the decades covered in the book.
Definitely worth a read!
March 31, 2015
Two cousins from a wealthy Cleveland family are born in the same year, and both named after their grandfather. Peter follows his nomadic father through Africa, and Petey stays home and unfortunately falls into the family business. Grandfather Peter was a gangster during the 1920's and 1930's, and even though he claimed he wanted to become leget, he doesn't completely reform.
Petey crosses the wrong people and must run for his life. Those wrong people find Peter, a journalist living in Spain. The whole house of cards has to come down for everyone to survive.
There's lots of twists and turns, and a nice history of the Ukrainian immigrant community in Cleveland.
Petey crosses the wrong people and must run for his life. Those wrong people find Peter, a journalist living in Spain. The whole house of cards has to come down for everyone to survive.
There's lots of twists and turns, and a nice history of the Ukrainian immigrant community in Cleveland.
November 17, 2015
First I must note that the copy I read was an Advanced Uncorrected Proof that I received last year at Book Con. I’m reading the books I received then before I attend this year’s Book Con at the end of the month.
Part one of the book was really thrilling and mysterious. I quickly found myself rooting for the good Peter Henry Hightower cousin.
Part two, did give great insight into the family history but it also slowed down the story for me.
Read Full Review @ Lazy Book Lovers
Part one of the book was really thrilling and mysterious. I quickly found myself rooting for the good Peter Henry Hightower cousin.
Part two, did give great insight into the family history but it also slowed down the story for me.
Read Full Review @ Lazy Book Lovers
December 8, 2015
Written in a style I'll call "historical whirlwind," in which a grand story of a century's worth of depravity is whipped through fast as can be. Which is for the most part very entertaining. It just never really settles down with any of the characters in a way I could sink into. I liked the biting, bleak look at capitalism in the 20th century. The book pulls no punches. Nice writing, too.
February 10, 2016
I picked this book up solely because the title caught my eye - Hightower is my maiden name, so without reading the flap I grabbed it up. I'm glad I did - this isn't my usual cup of tea, but Slattery's novel is well written, cunningly planned and beautifully paced. It's quite bloody, but with the rare quality of violence that is used to paint the picture, rather than up the body count.
tasted
April 6, 2019Very well written mafia-like family novel that has similarities to Salman Rushdie’s The Golden House, except Ukrainian-American rather than Indian-American, the family patriarch is dead, and without the humor and allusions.
January 1, 2015
An interesting read. Liked the way the story unfolded. Somehow seamlessly jumps from one continent to another, one timespan and back. Still don't understand organized crime.
April 26, 2015
I stopped reading at page 100. The story just lost focus for me... I couldn't relate or empathize with the characters. Two stars means it was okay, so that's what I'm giving it.
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