The World of Mob Adjacent

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Mob ad·ja·cent. mäb / ə /ˈjās(ə) nt / Adjective. Next to or adjoining a group of people known for being disorderly and intent on causing trouble or violence.

When a powerful mob boss in Depression-era Chicago becomes indebted to humble fruit peddler Mickey Gentile, Mickey’s family begins a half-century mob adjacent journey – not in the mob, but near the mob, close enough to enjoy the perks but far enough removed to avoid the danger. Mickey’s son Mike makes childhood friends with men who will one day rise to the top of the nascent Chicago Outfit

Nightclub entrepreneur Mike Gentile manages a tricky balancing act: Suburban husband and father, nightclub owner, respected member of the community, and longtime friend to notorious mobsters. Heat, hoodlums and Hollywood stars filter in and out of his family’s lives as casually as the milkman and the mailman. No one ever wondered about the effect being steeped in a world of crime and criminals on a pair of impressionable young boys when The Wonder Years collides with The Sopranos. 

Born the day the stock market crashed in 1929 and ushered in the Great Depression; Mike grew up in Chicago’s Little Italy alongside the boys who became the next generation of post-Capone mobsters. They weren’t criminals then, just kids from the neighborhood. Members of the mob remained a constant presence as protectors, patrons, and occasionally Santa Claus. Career criminals became trusted friends and honorary uncles – people like Sam Giancana, Frank Cerone, his cousin Jackie Cerone, and an assortment of hoodlums, gangsters, bone-breakers, second-story guys, dirty cops, and dodgy lawyers. Anyone might turn up at their front door. And Mike’s boys were watching.

Michael and Jeffrey Gentile grew up in a topsy-turvy world where the man who robbed the bakery was as respected as the guy who baked the bread.

Only 14 months apart, as children some mistook Michael and Jeffrey for twins. But they were   very different. Michael was charismatic and outgoing; Jeffrey was shy and uncomfortable around the neighbor kids who crown Michael as their leader. The story explores the shifting sands of brotherhood. In their youth, Michael served as Jeffrey’s pal and protector. As teenagers, they became rivals. In school, Jeffrey excelled. At home, he was the good son who listened to his parents. Michael was a wild child and a rebel who resented the comparisons. 

As a young man, Michael was drawn to the Outfit’s glistening illusion of power and pulled willingly into a world. Mike blamed himself for exposing his sons to people and circumstances that created a false impression of how the world worked. His guilt – and his wife’s blame – brought forgiveness for Michael’s increasingly reckless choices and help cleaning up his messes.

Jeffrey was repelled by his brother’s choices and largely exiled from the family when he came out as gay. Crime was forgivable; homosexuality was not. Jeffrey built a successful, stable life outside the family as Michael stumbled through a life littered with dangerous decisions and broken promises. But when Mike died suddenly, there was no one to clean up an entanglement with the mob that could cost Michael his life, and Jeffrey came to the rescue. Helping to save Michael brought the estranged brothers back together and created a brand-new version of family.