ON MEN -Excerpt from Gaslighting Greta<br>What I think of at three in the morning spirals into realizations and recognitions, and a time when my mirrors move toward me. The insomnia of separation from a man’s shoulder bowed to my head, tweaks my worries like soft bread. The mind that directs me when driving adventurely maps our journey safely. The voice that encourages and applauds my success rather than swaying with jealousy or preoccupation. How the laughter erupts in a moment of spontaneous passion. The gestures of him shaving, and the modest vanity after I re-wardrobe him. Feeling his eyes in a crowd, undressing or admiring me, for some folly or expression. The humor he finds in my misguided attempts to open bottles and packages with a dull spoon and figure out electronics. How he will pardon and pamper my unwarranted fears of stalkers, nightmares, cancer, and falling down the slippery wooden stairs. The man whose balance evens my wrinkles, lets light into my eyes, and opens my shell with wonder and shelter. See less<br>Shared post<br><br><br><br><br><br><br><a href="https://www.facebook.com/gootgeldlevine?comment_id=Y29tbWVudDoxMDI0ODA0MDk3OTU4Mzk1Nl8yMDk0MDk5Mzg0ODA0OTQx&__cft__[0]=AZir3RmnNxdJAyXcf_I8lKe5Kp45iAZZg9H4GDHaydaCUWBka4vtUxb4T2JY2u6yTsQJ6oT04i9C_Xer5ma2GF6Wa8EYTHhefjLOPi1FDpV3D3FPIEWV5JRL7E9Awi6SScHhjW5KOtHn9w&__tn__=R-R">Carolyn Gootgeld-Levine</a><br>·<br><br>Dad?<br><br><br><br>LUELLEN SMILEY ADVENTURERS IN LIVINGNESS

Where Gaps of Expression are Liberated

ABOUT

Luellen Smiley is a creative nonfiction writer, author, columnist, and historian whose writing is deeply rooted in a controversial personal history. She is the daughter of Allen Smiley, a close friend, associate, and business partner of notorious Las Vegas gangster Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel. Her father was sitting only feet from Siegel when Siegel was murdered in Beverly Hills on June 20, 1947.

That extraordinary childhood history became the foundation for Smiley’s first book, Cradle of Crime: A Daughter’s Tribute, published in 2017. The memoir explores what it was like to grow up as the daughter of a man connected to organized crime while trying to reconcile her love for her father with the secrecy, fear, and criminal world surrounding him.

Smiley’s work has appeared in publications including the New York Post, MORE Magazine, Southern California newspapers, and Authorlink. She wrote the newspaper column Smiley’s Dice—Adventures in Livingness, which earned a Blue-Ribbon Award from the California Newspapers Association for her Growing Up With Gangsters columns.

Her interest in her father’s history also led her to become a researcher and commentator on organized crime history. She has participated in television, radio, and documentary interviews.

Smiley’s next book, Gaslighting Greta, will be published this year. A personal story that reads like fiction. Her own website describes the project as exploring a woman whose life is destabilized by gaslighting and psychological manipulation.

Her writing career reflects a recurring theme: using personal experience and research to uncover the truth behind complicated relationships and extraordinary lives. From the secretive world surrounding her father and Bugsy Siegel to the deeply personal territory of Gaslighting Greta, Smiley’s work transforms difficult experiences into stories of survival, discovery, and ultimately reclaiming one’s voice.

Luellen Smiley is an author whose life has given her an unusual perspective on secrecy, manipulation, family loyalty, betrayal, and survival—and she uses that perspective as the raw material for her nonfiction storytelling.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY

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  1. RUDY FUNK Avatar
    RUDY FUNK

    *Oh fuck what a write…..I have to read it again tomorrow when I’m not comatose, but from this vantage point, you have zero’d in on the “Great Wall of China, the Continental Divide, the Abyss that separates the generations. A fabulous piece of* *insight that you have authored. That “write”, was like a line out of Carlitos Way, except instead of “writing”, she was “dancing”, and the two customers come up to her when she’s sitting with Carlito and they say…..”that was nice, really really nice.” BUT MORE SO. Very good dollface. *

    On Sat, Feb 2, 2013 at 7:48 PM, SMILEY’S DICE

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I didn’t subscribe to this weekly trade rag, and I’m not in the entertainment business. Still they pile up on the island counter in the kitchen, because  it’s what’s happening baby. So I opened one last night. My younger than I look paradigm dissolved, as I viewed musicians, celebrities, TV, film/ trends that were as unfamiliar to me as I would be to them. Should I develop an interest in what they are pitching? I kept reading about bands I never heard of,

Thirty Something Kufiya
Thirty Something Kufiya (Photo credit: tsweden)

books, new killer thriller suspense series that will make my blood curdle,  single women who make love to themselves,  murderers to fall in love with, and ten pages on the OSCARS.

I’m grateful for those artists of mercy that I have been turned on to in my life. Those are the ones I’ll cherish. That first Stones concert, first performance artist,  exhibits at Mass Moca, an Afro-Cuban dance performance, Baryshnikov, Miles Davis, Cab Calloway, Tito Puente,  the movie Women In Love, and Thirty Something.

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