The Godmother: Murder, Vengeance, and the Bloody Struggle of Mafia Women

by Barbie Latza Nadeau

Overview

“The Godmother [is a] crisply written, dutifully researched book exploring the role of women in the…underbelly of Italian life.”
—New York Times Book Review


The chilling story of one woman’s rise to prominence in the Italian Mafia, and the as-yet untold stories of the women who followed in her footsteps.

For as long as it has gripped our imaginations, the Mafia has been tied to an ingrained image of masculinity. We read about "made men," "wiseguys," and "goodfellas" leading criminal organizations whose culture prizes machismo, with women as ancillary and often-powerless characters: trivialized mistresses and long-suffering mob wives. The reality is far more complex.

In The Godmother, investigative journalist Barbie Latza Nadeau tells the stories of the women who have risen to prominence, and fallen out of favor, in the Italian mob, beginning with the most infamous of these women: Pupetta Maresca. A Mafia woman born and raised, Pupetta avenged her husband’s murder, firing 29 shots at the man who killed him.

Woven throughout Pupetta's story is Nadeau's diligent research, and her personal interviews with the Mafia women themselves. Nadeau takes readers inside the Mafia families to paint a complete and complex portrait of the real culture that has shaped the Mafia, and the women who are part of it.

Leaving behind the stereotypes we know from Mafia movies, The Godmother shows the Mafia in an entirely new light: full-fledged, ruthless, twenty-first-century criminal enterprises led by whoever is strong enough and smart enough to take control.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780143136118
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	09/06/2022
Pages:	256
Sales rank:	366,409
Product dimensions:	4.90(w) x 7.60(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Barbie Latza Nadeau is an American journalist and author who has lived in Rome, Italy, since 1996. She has worked as the Rome bureau chief for Newsweek Magazine and currently holds that position for The Daily Beast. She is an on-air contributor for CNN and a writer for Scientific American. Barbie's first book Angel Face about the murder of Meredith Kercher and the criminal trials of Amanda Knox was adapted for film in 2011. Her current, UK-published book Roadmap to Hell: Sex, Drugs and Guns on the Mafia Coast chronicles the tragic journeys of Nigerian women trafficked for sex in Italy.

Table of Contents

1 Pupetta's Kitchen 1

2 Crime School / Naples' Notorious Prison 27

3 The Strong and the Sweet 53

4 Sex and Honor 85

5 'Til Death Do Us Part 119

6 Toxic Parents 139

7 Drugs, Guns, and Vats of Acid 157

8 The Sin of Confession 177

9 Dying to Escape 193

11 A Few Good Women 211

Acknowledgments 229

Reporting Notes 233

Notes 237

Editorial Reviews

★ 07/04/2022

In this engrossing account, Nadeau (Roadmap to Hell: Sex, Drugs and Guns on the Mafia Coast) combines diligent research, hours of personal interviews, and vivid prose to immerse the reader in the world of Italian Mafia women. Nadeau tells the stories of those who defected and turned evidence against the mob, such as wives who betrayed their husbands, but she focuses on the unrepentant women, Assanta “Pupetta” Maresca chief among them. Born into a crime family in 1935, she married a mobster who was assassinated when she was 18 and pregnant. To retaliate, Maresca pumped 29 bullets into the man who ordered the hit and spent the next 10 years in prison, where she gave birth to her son, before being pardoned for the murder in 1965. She went on to remarry a mob underboss, but was sent back to prison in 1978 for another murder, which was overturned on appeal four years later. Maresca spent the 1980s wielding enormous influence in the crime organization, revered as the godmother and the Lady of Camorra. Even in her old age, she was celebrated as a self-made woman and was the first Mafia woman to be banned from having a public funeral due to her bloodthirsty life, when she died on New Year’s Eve 2021. This look at the “feminine” side of the Mafia is a must for true crime fans. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

One of our 51 Favorite Books of the Year: Washington Independent Review of Books


“The Godmother [is a] crisply written, dutifully researched book exploring the role of women in the…underbelly of Italian life.”
—New York Times Book Review

"This biography of Pupetta is a colorful addition to the canon." — Molly Young, Read Like the Wind Newsletter, The New York Times

"Meet 'Lady Camorra,' one of the first female mafia bosses, as she sips coffee and drums her black-lacquered fingernails on her kitchen table. 'The Godmother' takes the reader into the little-known role of the women that underpin Italy’s most ruthless mob families and are forced to reckon with the social and sexual codes governing the violent reality of mafioso rule." –Sara Gay Forden, author of New York Times bestseller House of Gucci

“In this engrossing account, Nadeau (Roadmap to Hell: Sex, Drugs and Guns on the Mafia Coast) combines diligent research, hours of personal interviews, and vivid prose to immerse the reader in the world of Italian Mafia women… This look at the “feminine” side of the Mafia is a must for true crime fans.” –Publishers Weekly Starred Review

“The world of organized crime is so often portrayed in macho terms, Nadeau pulls back the curtain on the role of women. In a genre choked with pretenders and posers, this is the real thing. “The Godmother” hits its mark.” – The Toronto Star
 

"An unflinching portrait of one of the original divas of organized crime." –Clare Longrigg, author, Mafia Women


"Nuanced and skillfully reported, Barbie Latza Nadeau's work brilliantly reveals the unique prism of gender that both disenfranchises and facilitates women in the mafia." –Koa Beck, author, White Feminism

“Valuable are Nadeau’s accounts of mob wives and daughters who have cashed in on “mafia chic.”  [The Godmother] is a good choice for Mafia completists and students of international crime.” –Kirkus reviews

"A vivid and colorful exploration of a secret, scandalous and often terrifying world . . . Nadeau is an expert field guide."  –Maureen Callahan, author of New York Times bestseller American Predator

“Just when you thought there could not be a darker side to the Italian Mafia, Barbie Latza Nadeau has found it. This veteran reporter with the courage of a war correspondent ventures into a dangerous underworld where the women are as shrewd, ambitious, and often violent as the men who abuse and oppress them. Thrilling and heartbreaking all at the same time.” – Peter Houlahan, author of Norco ’80: The True Story of the Most Spectacular Bank Robbery in American History

From the Publisher

08/01/2022

Rome-based investigative journalist Nadeau (Roadmap to Hell) writes an account of one woman's rise to power in the Neapolitan Mafia. Pupetta Maresca married into a Mafia family as a teenager, then found herself pregnant, widowed, and in prison for murder within six months of her wedding. Nadeau writes that Maresca's power and reputation in the Mafia grew until she was infamous as a ruthless leader of the Camorra. Maresca, however, is not the norm for Mafia women, Nadeau writes. She interweaves Maresca's tale with absorbing stories of other Mafia women whose lives were much darker and deadlier than Pupetta's, plus details of an Italian culture that is rarely shown. Using personal interviews with women in the Mafia, along with other research, Nadeau argues that real Mafia women are vastly different from the archetypes portrayed in film and TV. VERDICT Fans of Mafia-related pop culture and history will enjoy Nadeau's book, even as it overturns everything we thought we knew about the Mafia.—Leah Fitzgerald

Library Journal

2022-06-30
A glancing account of women’s roles in the making of the Italian underworld.

There are few women with the polish of Carmela Soprano in Rome-based journalist Nadeau’s account of their role in the Camorra, the Naples-centered branch of the organized crime system that thrives on “fear and complacency” and infiltrates “every layer of Italian life.” Hundreds of such women are involved, some in central positions of power but most relegated to subsidiary roles in an old-fashioned, patriarchal business. The author focuses, a little too much, on one character, Assunta Maresca (1935-2021). Known as Pupetta, or “little doll,” Maresca evinced a murderous streak and, at the end of her long life, a fierce lack of repentance for any of her crimes. Indeed, she was a pioneer in the criminal world. Now, writes the author, “in the Camorra especially, where Pupetta thrived, women are making far more progress climbing the ladder and being treated as equals than their law-abiding peers.” Most of them were born into the business, and those who were not tend to serve in lesser roles as drug mules or street hustlers. Some of those whom Nadeau interviews are knowing—one warns her not to take the elevator in a recently built structure since the Camorra-riddled construction trade takes many shortcuts in building safety—while others feign ignorance. A problem with the book is that Nadeau’s data set is much too small, sociologically speaking. It’s more anecdotal than empirical, though she does produce some useful statistics—e.g., more than 150 women are now in Italy’s prisons for Mafia-related crimes, “the highest number ever recorded.” Also valuable are Nadeau’s accounts of mob wives and daughters who have cashed in on “mafia chic.” But those are the lucky ones, as “hundreds of women in mafia families have been brutally murdered over the years.”

A good choice for Mafia completists and students of international crime.

Kirkus Reviews