Easy Street, the True Story of a Gangster's Daughter

by Susan Berman

used book, biography

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction

214 pages, Paperback

First published December 31, 1981

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Susan Berman was an American journalist, a versatile writer in many literary genres, a novelist and author of two memoirs. She was the daughter of Davie Berman, a Las Vegas mob figure.

Berman was killed weeks after the authorities re-opened an investigation into the disappearance of Kathie Durst in 1982. Berman’s longtime friend and suspect in the disappearance has been charged in the highly publicized murder case.

Reviews

[Lorie Kleiner Eckert]

Here are four interesting things about Susan Berman (not all gleaned from this book):

#1: Her father was Davie Berman, a well-known Jewish organized crime figure in Las Vegas in the 1950s. Though she lived with her father until he died when she was 12 years old, she never knew that he was a mobster. When she finally figured this out in her early thirties, she wrote this book.

#2: In her book's acknowledgments page she lists and thanks ten "very special supportive friends", one of whom is Bobby Durst.

#3: Nineteen years after writing this book, Susan Berman was murdered execution style; and 15 years after that (in 2015) her friend Bobby Durst was implicated in her murder.

#4: Susan Berman went to private high school with a friend of mine. By the way, my friend said that everyone knew about Susan's late father's mob connections - except for Susan.

All of the above made for a very interesting read.

[Sandy Ortega]

This book was better than I expected. If you have an interest on how she was raised and who she became, then this is the book. She doesn’t sugar coat her dad’s involvement with the Mob. She describes how as a young child she viewed her father as a wonderful father. But she also saw things she didn’t know as she got older. I found this book to be a fast read

[Malcolm]

The theme, that the author did not know her Las Vegas hotel/casino owning father was a mobster, intrigues. And there are telling examples, such as her realizing that the men who were always in her house were actually bodyguards, not just her father's friends. But the author lacks insight and her recitation of her father's rise from newsboy in Sioux City to kidnapper of bootleggers and onward is lackluster.

[Walt]

This is a disappointing book because there are only sketchy details regarding Davie Berman's background, especially during Prohibition. It is clear his daughter did not find much prior to his move to Las Vegas. Even there, she adds very little to his activities.

[Patricia]

Quite fascinating, for all the good it did her.