Wise Guy Analysis

After reading If Beale Street Could Talk, I am now reading Wise Guy by Nicholas Pileggi. This is a true-crime story about the American mobster of New York City, Henry Hill. This novel became one of the most popular crime movies, The Goodfellas. I’m enjoying the story about Hill because I love crime stories and because Henry Hill is an interesting and intriguing character. He practically grew up with the Lucchese crime family, but he joined the mob almost by accident. He was looking for a part-time job at the age of 11 since his father instilled the belief that “work at an early age…taught young people the value of money” (Pileggi 9). He begins getting paid by doing small errands and chores for the mobsters on top of attending school. As he became more involved with the mobsters, schooling became less of a priority to him. He would rather live “in a world of eighteenth-century Sicilian thievery” (33) than learn in school. He was making money and he found that more important than learning in school. He started doing more jobs that were more serious, and he was becoming a “wise guy”. The reader saw the progression of Henry Hill from being an 11-year-old boy in search of a part-time job to a 16-year-old wise guy. I’m definitely excited to read more about Henry Hill because this is really only the beginning, his upbringing. There is still much more in Henry Hill’s life of crime that is still yet to be read.