Willie John Mahoney: A Tale of the Irish, the Italians, the Mafia and War in the Pacific

Willie John Mahoney traces the immigration of an Irish farming couple who leave their famine-stricken family potato farm in Limerick, Ireland, in 1922. During their passage to America, Will and Mary Mahoney meet Vito Rizzi, a man of honor from Palermo, also fleeing an intolerable situation in Benito Mussolini’s Mafia hostile Italy. The dyslexia of Willie John Mahoney, the only son of Will and Mary, will force him from school and into the streets of New York, where he becomes the head of a gang. Willie is best friends with Augi Andoleni, Jr., the only son of Will’s employer, a rather frail and studious young man, a complete opposite of Willie. Tragedy will touch the Andoleni family, as the lives of the Mahoneys and Vito Rizzi will forever be intertwined along with their colorful neighbors in Little Italy, set against a backdrop of prohibition, their neighborhood’s Mafia-rich environment and World War II.