Summary of Joseph Bonanno's A Man of Honor

By IRB Media

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#1 My father, who was a man of honor in Sicily, moved to America to avoid prosecution. He was the head of the Bonanno clan, the leading family of Castellammare. The Sicilian immigrants remained a close-knit community in New York.

#2 My father, who was a Bonanno, had a reputation in America. The Castellammarese immigrants in Brooklyn looked up to him, as their relatives had in Sicily. Downstairs from our apartment, my father opened a pasta factory to satisfy the neighborhood demand for fresh macaroni and spaghetti.

#3 My father took me to the nickelodeon to watch Neapolitan moving pictures when I was seven years old. He told me stories, and said that while in the New World, Garibaldi also went to Uruguay and helped liberate it from Brazil. He said that we were going back to Sicily.

#4 I was home in the land of mezzogiorno, the land of midday, where people sang in their misery and their joy, where the sun was your constant companion, and where the hot and dusty sciroccos blew from the Libyan desert.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Apr 28, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669395553

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Insights on Joseph Bonanno's A Man of Honor

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 5

Insights from Chapter 6

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

My father, who was a man of honor in Sicily, moved to America to avoid prosecution. He was the head of the Bonanno clan, the leading family of Castellammare. The Sicilian immigrants remained a close-knit community in New York.

#2

My father, who was a Bonanno, had a reputation in America. The Castellammarese immigrants in Brooklyn looked up to him, as their relatives had in Sicily. Downstairs from our apartment, my father opened a pasta factory to satisfy the neighborhood demand for fresh macaroni and spaghetti.

#3

My father took me to the nickelodeon to watch Neapolitan moving pictures when I was seven years old. He told me stories, and said that while in the New World, Garibaldi also went to Uruguay and helped liberate it from Brazil. He said that we were going back to Sicily.

#4

I was home in the land of mezzogiorno, the land of midday, where people sang in their misery and their joy, where the sun was your constant companion, and where the hot and dusty sciroccos blew from the Libyan desert.

#5

My father returned to Sicily because the Bonanno family was preeminent in the Castellammare region. The family owned land, cattle, and horses. The old rivalry between the Bonannos and the Buccellatos, two major factions in town, was festering once again.

#6

The Bonanno family was the dominant power in the Castellammare region, and the Buccellato family was the rival power. The Buccellatos were trying to expand their sphere of influence, and this inevitably set them at loggerheads with the Bonannos.

#7

The Bonanno family was allied with the Buccellato family, headed by Stefano Magaddino. Felice Buccellato, the patriarch of the Buccellato clan, orchestrated a scheme that resulted in Peppe Bonanno and his right-hand man, Stefano Magaddino, being sent to jail.

#8

My father, Salvatore, had the choice of thinking only of himself or of taking care of others. He chose to help his family. If we were to ask a man such as my father who he was responsible for, he might answer, For as many people as need me.

#9

My father, Salvatore Bonanno, was a peace-loving man who had very little interest in the family business. He left for America three years after I was born, and Stefano Magaddino became the leader of the Bonanno faction. Felice Buccellato resented the Magaddinos’ rise to power, which he felt had come at the expense of his own family.

#10

The island of Sicily has been invaded by foreign powers for well over two thousand years. The Arabs alone stayed for about three hundred years more than the United States has been in existence. Without a genius for survival, Sicilians would have long ago lost their identity.

#11

The Sicilian culture is a unique and distinct way of life that was created over the years to deal with the pressures of survival. It is a culture of survival, and its members are extremely aware of themselves and their surroundings.

#12

My father was accused of conspiracy to commit murder, and the prosecution’s main witness was a man willing to testify that he had heard my father talk about the murdered man in unfriendly terms. My father’s lawyers tried to impeach the witness’s testimony, but they were not able to do so.

#13

My father was acquitted of the charges against him, and the trial soon became known throughout the entire Castellammare region. Whenever Vetrano passed, street urchins would make the sign of the devil’s horn, the sign of the cuckold, behind his back.

#14

My father’s death was peaceful and dignified, but for me, at the age of 11, it was dreadful. I did not know what my