On the Run: A Mafia Childhood

by Gregg Hill, Gina Hill

The children of notorious Mafia "wiseguy" turncoat Henry Hill--subject of the film "Goodfellas"--tell their own story of danger, hurt, and family in this extraordinary account of what it is like to grow up in the federal witness protection program. Includes a new Afterword by the authors.

Genres: True Crime, Nonfiction, Crime, Biography, Memoir, Autobiography, Biography Memoir

336 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published September 14, 2004

Reviews

[Mark R. · Rating 4 out of 5]

****1/2

I'd seen "GoodFellas" and read "Wiseguy", so I already knew Henry Hill, the famed mob informant, was a pretty lousy individual. But I didn't realize just what a piece of human excrement he was until I read this book by his children, Gregg and Gina Hill, who, at least when the book was published nine years ago, live in parts unknown, under assumed names.

At one time, the Hills were in the federal witness protection program, as shown towards the ends of the above mentioned film and book. But Henry fouled that up for them, seemingly unable to stay away from selling drugs and committing other crimes in order to keep away from finding legitimate work.

You can feel the vitriol these kids have towards their father, as you read through this fascinating look back on a very dysfunctional family life. The narrative is split up in sections written by Gregg and Gina, each of them offering their own viewpoints to incidents which occurred to them in the 70s and 80s. Gregg's nearly constant anger and disappointment in his father contrasts with his sister's more sympathetic hopeful (at least, at first; this changes about halfway through the book) point of view.

Read "Wiseguy" for an in-depth look at the criminal dealings of Henry Hill and his underworld friends. Then read "On the Run" for a descriptive view of the man as a person, as a human being ... or as something entirely different.

[Valerity (Val) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Originally published in September 2004. Now published again with Random House UK 13 years later. The story of Henry Hill's wife and kids after Goodfellas. They went into Witness Protection but needed someone to protect them from the craziness of Henry and his shenanigans and his chronic drinking, which only got worse. The tensions became extremely amped up while Henry sat around waiting to rat out his former friends, leading to security breaches. A crazy story, told by turns from each of the children in the family. A must read for mob book readers. This is the rest of the story, in all its volatile detail told by those who were affected most. I was given an ARC by NetGalley for an honest review. Thanks for reading.

[Wishbear · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the story of Henry Hill's children pretty much starting where the movie Goodfellas leaves off. Henry Hill is in the witness protection program along with his wife and children. This book relays what the 11 & 13 year old kids faced when their father turns rat on the Mafia family he was connected with his whole life.

Now I love GoodFellas. It has to be one of my all time favourite movies. But Henry Hill is an awful, awful person. you don't see it in the movie so much...the charisma of Ray Liotta kind of blinds you, but the person behind the romantasized mobster was a narccisstic, alcoholic, drug-addled monster who always put himself before his wife and children. Continuously flouting the rules of the Witness Protection and putting everyone in real danger.

We are compelling convinced of henry's wrong doings by the alternating voices of his 13 year old son and his 11 year old daughter. Gregg Hill is bitter and angry and scared. Gina thinks her father hung the moon and everything will be okay.

I couldn't put the book down. It is difficult subject matter as you read about the physical and emotional terror and abuse Henry subjects his famiy too. But I was compelled to finish it.

[Grace · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an interesting read. Gregg and Gina Hill tell their story of growing up as the children of Henry Hill, a Mafia associate, specifically after they are relocated as a part of the witness protection program.

Gregg and Gina do not dig too deep into the trauma and dysfunction, but they do dig up just enough that you can get the feeling that their lives were really really awful, especially when their father was home and wacked out on drugs. Their writing also has a childlike feel to it, like they are writing as they would have written at the ages of 13 or 15.

Overall, this is an interesting and quick read. Kudos to Gregg and Gina for having the courage to write this.

[Iola · Rating 4 out of 5]

While it's a good book from a crime perspective, I just wanted to deck Henry the whole time I was reading the book. More so towards the end when he was so out of control. I'm amazed his kids managed to get out and live normal lives. What a grade A w****r.

[Diane · Rating 4 out of 5]

After seeing Goodfellas for the nth time, and reading the Wiseguy Cookbook, I picked this up. It was so incredibly sad. The childhood Gregg and Gina had was horrific, however their version made a good balance to their father's 'rose-colored-glasses' and self-centered accounts. It is also a very good book for those working or involved with children of incarcerated parents. Let's face it, there are those within the penal system who are not looking for restorative justice or personal development. They are just fine with how they are, who they are, and their life style. Here, you get a story from the other point of view - from the child, and children, trying to hold it all together, to be good people, do good things, and make their way in the world, all the time being sabotaged by one of the two people who is supposed to make things right for them, their Dad. Very very sad. But by the sounds of it, they are both now ok. Thank you, God! And all the folks who looked out for them along the way.

[Shelley · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is an interesting read, and I read it in one weekend, and although I enjoyed it, it wasn’t totally immersed.

This is the story of Henry Hill’s children, Gina and Gregg. Henry wasn’t a big time mafia ganster, but after his a big heist the people involved start to ‘disappear’. Henry is convinced to rat on his connections, in exchange to have his record wiped clean and go into witness protection.

Gregg and Gina do not go into a lot of detail of the trauma they experienced; and in some respect for me it’s lacking in emotion. You do get the feeling that they had an awful time with their father, who constantly put their lives in danger by not following the witness protection rules.

I liked the style and how it changed between the viewpoints of each child and their different perspectives. If you liked Goodfella’s you’ll like this book.

[Matt Ceccato · Rating 5 out of 5]

I purchased this book for a penny off Amazon and started reading it Thursday. To say I had a hard time putting this book down would be an understatement. I saw "GoodFellas" and read "WiseGuy" in 1991. Now, 26 years later, all the details of both come back to life from the family members of Henry Hill.

Gina and Gregg are excellent storytellers, especially considering the story is their own. While not a vilification of Henry Hill (nor a defense), the book serves as a clear reminder that, once a crook, always a crook. And, while no speculation has been made about life in Witness Protection changing since the 1980s, it did make me think about what that life is actually like: not fun at all.

Definitely a great read if you are interested in life in and out of the mafia. And, if you've seen the movie or read Nicholas Pileggi's book, you'll breeze through this one as well.

[Chelsie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I couldn't put this book down, I felt so bad for the children and the life they were made to live. With each chapter came more selfishness from their father while their mother looked on as though that was a normal life style. This seems to be just the tip of the iceberg into the mafia world and the lives their poor families got dragged through. However I give huge props to the children for wanting to strive for a normal life and becoming better people and not following the footsteps of their father like so many unfortunately do because they don't know how else to live. Recommend for anyone intrigued by the mafia or witness protection.

[Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very sad but very real account from children of a self centered, drug and alcohol addled Mafia associate who had no regard for authority unless he was in grave danger. Amazing how he and family even survived it all. The mother almost as bad for staying with her violent husband and putting her children through all this when she could have had protection and a new safe and normal life.

[Cathleen Dwyer · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75 but I can't figure how to do that! Good book. Definitely a page turner. I don't know if I would have liked it as much without having read wiseguy (Henry Hill, their father's story). But it was engaging and tragically captivating to hear their side of everything. I hope they have found some peace

[Traci · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can't get over the disfunction in this family. A mother who's so committed to her husband that she can't even see the affects on her children! A daughter who lived in the clouds until she was 18, and the only one who totally got it!

[Ehsan Salahuddin · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the saddest books I have read. And it's personal on many levels.

[Christopher Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

A surprisingly engaging and sad story. This is the story of Henry Hill, the guy from the movie Goodfellas and the book Wiseguy. Instead of the mobster's perspective, this is told from the side of his two children, both pre-teens when they went into witness protection.

Early in the Witness Protection program, you get a sad, powerful glimpse into what its like to be a kid wrenched out of your life without any real understanding of what is going on or why. Both kids try to deal with their new lives and their father's increasingly destructive, sometimes violent behavior that forces them to move over and over until the FBI just gives up on him.

This book is told mainly by Gina and Gregg, alternating as they tell the tales of how they grew up and you get a different perspective on the charming criminal dad.

[Kelly Parker · Rating 4 out of 5]

A brother and sister each tell their true account of growing up as the child of a “wiseguy” and their experiences in the Witness Protection program when their father decides to turn on and turn in his Mafia friends.
This picks up where Goodfellas leaves off. Rather than the fresh start they were hoping for, they spend the next several years living with a drug-addicted, alcoholic sleazebag, who lives the same crooked life that got him into trouble in the first place. Only now, they also get to worry about being found and killed.
Just shows that you can take a guy out of the Mob, but you can’t make him act like an even halfway decent person.

[Les · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love the movie Goodfellas
I love the book Wise Guy

I now loath Henry Hill.
All the time when you watched / read about the insanity that was life in the Mob you never really thought about his kids? I mean they are barely in the book or the movie and they were even re-gendered by the author to protect their identities

But Henry Hill wasn't just a good time mobster he was a psychopath. And his kids had to live with this; while their mother was co-dependent.

Henry never went straight, he endlessly messed up their witness protection by calling and visiting his former associates. he was always scamming or straight up committing crimes.

Henry was so out of control that he was booted from Wit-Sec and didn't tell his family.
The fact that his son and daughter grew up to be honorable members of society is utterly all on them and it is frankly amazing.

[Patricia Walters · Rating 4 out of 5]

Goodfellas is one of my favorite movies of all time, some of the most iconic scenes occur in it. BUT no one discusses what happened after Henry and the family went into witness protection..living with Henry Hill as his legal entanglements and drug use escalated sounds as chaotic as I'd imagine. His children wrote well from their experience growing up in unfathomable circumstances...an interesting behind the scenes look at what happens to a wise guy when the party's over.

[Zahra Shah 📚 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Goodfellas is one of my favourite films! Wiseguy is one of the interesting memoirs I have read. But this book truly explores and exposes what an absolute disgusting dog turd Henry Hill was.

[Stephanie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Publisher's Description:

"In the 1970s, Henry Hill pulled off heists and busted heads with the Mob. In the '80s, he became famous-as the antihero of the bestselling book Wiseguy and blockbuster movie Goodfellas. But there was one story he couldn't tell. Now his children, Gregg and Gina, tell it for him.

ON THE RUN is the extraordinary true account of what it's like to grow up in the federal witness protection program. Just as Gregg was celebrating his bar mitzvah and his sister, Gina, was buying her first bra, Henry Hill was informing on his former cronies. Henry, his wife, and children were swept into protective custody. And Gregg and Gina, who'd already been exposed to their father's wild side, were about to be ripped from their home and lose the only normalcy they'd ever known.

Taking only what they could fit in a bag, the Hill children began a nightmarish life on the run: constantly moving from town to town, often without warning, and always knowing that their Uncle Jimmy, along with their father's other former "friends," wanted the Hills dead. All the while, Henry, a violent career criminal with a taste for hard drugs and women, used his new identity to break the law and make new enemies-forcing the family to run again and again. For Gina, the journey from Queens to Nebraska to Kentucky to Washington State was one of fierce denial-of trying to see the best in her abusive father, of learning her skills as an amateur actress, and finally uttering the unspeakable truth to her best friend. For Gregg, it was a chronicle of heartache, sacrifice, and violence: giving up a tennis career, standing up his first date because the family had to flee that night, and finally, after a series of near lethal confrontations with his father, running for his life.

Exploding the myths of glitz and camaraderie that surround the Mob, ON THE RUN is a gritty, heartbreaking true story of children born into two families at once: the loud, violent Hills, and the silent, murderous Mafia. In their own eloquent words, Gregg and Gina Hill tell how they survived both-and finally got the best revenge."

[Lee Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Everybody knows that Goodfellas is just about my favorite movie, I saw it in the theater 7 times (6 during its first release/dollar theater days, once at Studio 35), etc. So this book is like having a sequel to my favorite movie. Only instead of sexy, menacing Ray Liotta, Henry Hill plays himself, and as anyone who's heard him on Howard Stern knows, the real Henry Hill, while entertaining, is a scumbag.

I'd never really given much thought before to how much it would suck to be a kid in this world, maybe because the movie put such a romantic gloss on it. But Henry Hill's total inability to live straight, even after entering the Witness Protection Program, must have been hell on his children. Add to that Karen, who was "no saint, believe me"--well, really, she was just an enabler, who took Henry back and bailed him out of jail countless times, and you've got two kids who hoped moving to Nebraska, Kentucky, and finally Washington would give them a chance at a normal life, and a father who guaranteed that would not be possible.

This book alternates stories from Gregg and Gina, giving you a different perspective. Gregg, being older and male, was often enraged by his father's behavior. Gina, who is my age, clung to the idea of her father as a charming spoiler of his "Princess," until he beat the crap out of her in a drunken stupor. The ending of the book feels rushed--"then we grew up and moved away, the end" but otherwise, I totally devoured it. I would have liked more from the point of the publication of Wiseguy forward, but, still, a great book for anyone who knows the story.

[Stacy · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I read (and reviewed) Gangsters and Goodfellas by Henry Hill I found a man who thought very highly of himself and who liked to skip over details that he didn’t think were important. I decided to follow up that book with this one written by his children about their lives with their father and I am so glad I did. This is the story of two kids still in hiding from the Mob who have had their lives irrecoverably changed by their father and his choices.

Gregg and Gina spent their childhoods with parties in their house full of drugs, sex, and mobsters or when Henry was in jail, visiting him. Gregg never really had a close relationship with his father. He saw what was going on and wanted no part of it. Gina idolized her father and it wouldn’t be until much later that she saw him for what he was.

When Henry decided to enter the Witness Protection Program with his family, Gregg and Gina viewed it in different ways. Gregg thought Henry was being selfish and Gina was grateful that Henry wanted the kids with him. Their first stop was in Nebraska, where they only made it two months before being shipped off to Kentucky for a little longer, and then on to Washington State where they would both finish school. These moves were necessitated because Henry could not quit breaking the rules and putting them in danger.

There's a little more on my blog http://stacybuckeye.wordpress.com/200...

[Danielle Schwartz-Beattie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am so glad Gregg and Gina were willing to write this. Like many people, Goodfellas is one of my favorite movies, but I always wonder about the children in those situations. There was a moment in Goodfellas when Henry gets out of jail and takes his family from the tiny apartment they had been living in for 4 years back to the lap of luxury. I just kept thinking that 4 years is a long time to 2 small children. I wondered why we had heard more about his kids even if it was as a cautionary tale. I recently decided to read Wise Guys and really enjoyed it, but again found very little info about the kids. I was thrilled to come across this book. It answered all my lingering questions. I thought the alternating perspectives of the children was compelling. I agree with several other reviews that recommend reading Wise Guys first. I knew Henry's perspective was distorted, after all he is obviously a minimum of a raging narcissist, but it was fascinating to see the contrast between Karen's perspective and that of her children. While the children clearly loved her and sympathized with their mother, it was clear that she was equally as responsible for what amounted to a very dysfunctional and abusive childhood.

I think this is a must read for any Goodfellas fan. It is only fair to the family Henry damaged so bad in his lifelong pursuit of selfishness.

[patrick Lorelli · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a re-release of a book from 2004. It is written by two of the children of Henry Hill who if anyone has seen the movie “Goodfellas” was taken from the book “Wiseguy”. Even after the movie after he ratted out the people he worked for and had gone into the witness protection program he still screwed that up for his family. With all of his drinking and mostly drugs his family was back on the run again because of him and the government was not going to protect him or the family they got what they needed and wanted.
Here you really get to see the not so glitter life but the family dysfunctional which is more than some of some other families. You feel for the two of them for they had no control over the situation and their father did not care. Really a good book especially if you know about or read the other book. Worth the read. I received this book from Netgalley.com I gave it 4 stars. Follow us at www.1rad-readerreviews.com

[Chrissy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a biography from the 2 childred of Henry Hill (Goodfellas main character) who ratted out a bunch of his mob associates to avoid prison himself. The kids detail what life was life living in Long Island before going into Witness Protection and then once they were thrust into the program. They have a different story to tell than their dad, as they don't glorify being in the mob. They were victimes themselves and had to endure lots of pain and then be punished for the crimes their dad committed by living their lives on the run.

[ForenSeek · Rating 5 out of 5]

Extremely well written book about a pretty unique, fascinating topic: the later life of the Hill family after they had to enter the witness protection program. The gangster life of Henry Hill is portrayed in the film Goodfellas (1990). This is a welcome dose of reality to balance the somewhat hyped-up gangster life depicted in that film. Alcoholism, paranoia, drug abuse, endless fights among the family - the price Hill forced his family to pay for his lifestyle. Love the two different narrator voices (Gina and Gregg), and how they balance the story. Highly recommended.

[Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good book!! This was written by the now grown children of Henry Hill, one of the famous "Goodfellas" men who was portrayed by the actor Ray Liotta. It gives a personal, in-depth look into the life of a historical period of time with the American Mafia. Lots of action, suspense, true crime, and ultimately heartbreak. Whether your into reading about true crime or the Mafia this book will be a great addition to your collection!

[Joan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was such a hard book to read as a parent. Henry was a street guy that degenerated further and further into an alcoholic and drug filled abyss. Karen may have been the more caring parent but ultimately was just as dysfunctional in her own way. Kudos to the kids who made their way out of the madness and into a better life.

[Nancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve always been a fan of the movie Goodfellas, but this book tells the true story of the impact that Henry Hill’s life of crime had on his children. This book details their life in witness protection, living in constant fear thanks to their father’s continued involvement in crime, drugs and complete disregard for the rules of the witness protection program.

[Frances · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a fast and enjoyable read. Told in their two distinct voices, it relates the story of mobster Henry Hill's son and daughter and their life in the witness protection programme. Their father is an odious man - a violent drunk, junkie, liar and cheat, so the story is one of survival against the odds.

[Liz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good read. Gave a much less glamorous depiction of Henry Hill's "Good Fellas" life. Would have loved to hear more about how both Gregg and Gina Hill were able to move past the mental trauma that they faced during their childhood.