Mobfather
“George Anastasia has crafted a gangland masterpiece. You see the murderous Philadelphia mob through the eyes of a turncoat and relive the daily horror of life in his home from the words of the wife and son whose lives he nearly destroyed.”
—Jerry Capeci
Columnist, GangLandNews.com
Former columnist, New York Daily News
“There have been a lot of books about the mob, but never one like this. Mobfather paints a searing, poignant portrait of what really happens to the family of a ‘family’ man.”
—William Knoedelseder
Author of Stiffed: A True Story of MCA, the Music Business and the Mafia
“George Anastasia [is] our most important chronicler of the decline and fall of Italian America’s dark glory, La Cosa Nostra.”
—Bill Tonelli
Former editor, Esquire and Rolling Stone
In Mobfather, George Anastasia exposes what it really means to be married to the mob—and fathered by it. As revealed in their harrowing personal accounts, life for the wife and sons of Thomas “Tommy Del” DelGiorno became a descent into hell. When Maryann Welch ignored misgivings on her wedding day and plunged into marriage with the small-time gangster, she could not have foreseen how swiftly his greed and bloodlust would propel him to the highest ranks of the South Philadelphia Mafia.
In the end, guilty of a raft of crimes that included multiple murders, Tommy Del served less than a year in prison in exchange for turning government witness during a dozen trials against fellow mobsters.
Revisiting his gangland classic, the author follows up on the fates of all the major players. Based on years of reporting, thousands of pages of court testimony, and extensive interviews, Mobfather takes the reader deep into the heart of corruption.