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Tom Folsom And The Great Red Hook Mafia Wars

Fresh Air
Published July 21, 2009 at 11:05 AM EDT

Murder, gang wars and Mafia dons all appear in Tom Folsom's new book, The Mad Ones: Crazy Joe Gallo And The Revolution At The Edge Of The Underworld.

A look at the real-life Gallo family — a gangster clan that inspired Bob Dylan's song "Joey" as well as The Godfather — The Mad Ones looks at Larry, Albert and "Crazy" Joe Gallo as they war against established crime families and take over the Red Hook neighborhood of Brooklyn in the '50s and '60s through a variety of colorful and brutal means.

Folsom co-authored the book Mr. Untouchable: The Rise, Fall and Resurrection of Heroin's Teflon Don, about drug kingpin Nicky Barnes; his film credits include The Road to Gulu for Showtime, The Lost Generation and Ernest Hemingway: Wrestling with Life for A&E Biography and Neo-Noir, a short film for the Sundance Channel.

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Federal funding is gone.

Congress has eliminated all funding for public media.

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The future of public media is in your hands.

All donations are appreciated, but we ask in this moment you consider starting a monthly gift as a Sustainer to help replace what’s been lost.

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