The Mad Ones: Crazy Joe Gallo and the Revolution at the Edge of the Underworld

Joey Gallo died at 43, though not before leaving an indelible imprint both on New York and on American culture. In “The Mad Ones: Crazy Joe Gallo and the Revolution at the Edge of the Underworld”, Tom Folsom deftly evokes a wacky world populated by the sort of characters celebrated by Jack Kerouac.

“The only people for me are the mad ones,” Kerouac once wrote, “the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn.”

Mr. Gallo fit the definition, and Mr. Folsom, who in an earlier book creditably re-created the world of the drug dealer Nicky Barnes, does the same for a man mythologized by cultural trailblazers from Bob Dylan to Gay Talese.

Thanks to Sam Roberts

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The Great Red Hook Mafia Wars

Murder, gang wars and Mafia dons all appear in Tom Folsom's 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 and Fall of the Black Godfather, 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.

Listen to an interview with author Tom Folsom.

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