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.
Writing, like life itself, is a voyage of discovery, so I wrote Gaslighting Greta, to discover my part in the story. Not the one I lived as it was happening, the one that opened my eyes as I wrote. The outline was a cloudy mirror, notations every day on the events suspended into my life; gaslighting, lies, brokenpromises, tyrannical rages, physical assaults, all the emblems that my partner of thirty-five years disengaged. About midway into the manuscript, around page eighty, the cloudy mirror began exposing and demanding my full force of defense.
Writing Gaslighting Greta was my padded cell with friends, and doctors watching over me. If I kept writing and battling their bullets I would survive. It is now nine years later, and the manuscript is in the hands of a publisher’s editor. So, I have been rewriting this on and off for close to a decade.
I admit that the liberation of, it is published! will be a surprise. Not all writers understand the motive until it is over.
I’ve written in the genre of Creative Nonfiction, integrating the events through dialogue, journal entries, and a third-person narrative. Within three locations, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Los Angeles, California, and Saratoga Springs, NY. Greta (me) exposes the mutilation gaslighting abuse inflicts on her emotions, psychology, mental and physical health, and her finances.
I’ve written in the genre of Creative Nonfiction, integrating the events through dialogue, journal entries, and a third-person narrative. Within three locations, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Los Angeles, California, and Saratoga Springs, NY. Greta (me) exposes the mutilation gaslighting abuse inflicts on her emotions, psychology, mental and physical health, and her finances.
CONVERSING WITH AI TO LAUNCH MY PRE PUBLICATION ANOUNCENTMENT AUTHOR WEBSITE. DAZZLING
“Yes. We did this yesterday, and I found our earlier shortlist. You do not need to start that search over again.
“I also rechecked the strongest option today. My first choice remains WordPress.com‘s Express Website Design Service. It is $499 one time, plus the $108/year Premium plan, and they build a five-page site. Importantly, WordPress says these sites are built by its in-house design experts—real people, not simply an AI website generator. They also specifically show an “Author / Book” design category. WordPress.com
There is one drawback I want to investigate before I tell you to spend the $499: WordPress says the Express package doesn’t include revisions. WordPress.com Given the trouble you’ve already had with WordPress support, that’s important.
So go attend to your home projects. Don’t email or call a bunch of designers. When you’re ready to return to this, I’ll narrow our previous search to no more than three choices, with my preferred choice first, and I’ll specifically check which ones give you a real human you can speak with, what they charge, and whether they’ll renovate your existing Odyssey of Adventures site rather than make you start over.”
Glowing connections link a sketched concept map with a modern digital interface, symbolizing the transformation of ideas into technology.
I’ve written in the genre of Creative Nonfiction, integrating the events through dialogue, journal entries, and a third-person narrative. Within three locations, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Los Angeles, California, and Saratoga Springs, NY. Greta (me) exposes the mutilation gaslighting abuse inflicts on her emotions, psychology, mental and physical health, and her finances.
Author Luellen “Loulou” Smiley turns an extraordinary experience of deception, discovery, love and forgiveness into a riveting new memoir.
COMING SOON — How far can a lie travel before the truth finally catches up with it?
In Gaslighting Greta, author Luellen “Loulou” Smiley takes readers inside a deeply personal story where what appeared to be true—and whom she believed she could trust—slowly began to unravel.
What follows is not simply a story about gaslighting.
It is a story of suspense, inconceivable mystery, humor, self-reckoning, love and, ultimately, forgiveness.
Smiley recounts the experience with the perspective of a woman forced to examine not only the actions of others, but her own instincts, choices and understanding of what was happening around her. The result is a memoir with the tension and unexpected turns of a psychological novel—except it happened.
“A PERSONAL TRUE STORY THAT READS LIKE FICTION.”
Gaslighting Greta also marks the latest work from Smiley, author of Cradle of Crime — A Daughter’s Tribute, her memoir exploring her father’s extraordinary history through FBI files, court testimony, government surveillance records and her own experience as his daughter.
With Gaslighting Greta, Smiley turns the lens inward.
The book explores a question many people eventually confront in one form or another:
What happens when you discover that the story you have been living isn’t the story you thought it was?
Rather than presenting herself simply as a victim of deception, Smiley examines the far more complicated territory of recognizing the truth, reckoning with herself, finding humor amid the unbelievable, and deciding what comes after the discovery.
The result is a story about far more than gaslighting.
It is about trust. Truth. Friendship. Human vulnerability. And the surprising power of forgiveness.
Gaslighting Greta is forthcoming.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Luellen “Loulou” Smiley is an author and memoirist whose work draws upon remarkable true events and the people caught inside them. Her previous book, Cradle of Crime — A Daughter’s Tribute, explored the intersection of family, organized crime and American history from the unique perspective of a daughter uncovering her father’s past.
In Gaslighting Greta, Smiley brings that same determination to uncover the truth to an intensely personal story—her own.
MEDIA / REVIEW / INTERVIEW INQUIRIES
Luellen “Loulou” Smiley Author, Gaslighting Greta [Email address: loulousmiley@yahoo.com Website: loulousmiley.com- under construction.
Publication date: To be announced Review copies: To be announced
I’ve written in the genre of Creative Nonfiction, integrating the events through dialogue, journal entries, and a third-person narrative. Within three locations, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Los Angeles, California, and Saratoga Springs, NY. Greta (me) exposes the mutilation gaslighting abuse inflicts on her emotions, psychology, mental and physical health, and her finances.
What I expected would never enter my life splashed my senses. I did judge, criticize, and sometimes ignore those in anguish and destitution. I am reliving those lives. A kind of philosophical justice, as the reckoning rises transparent as glass, my character needed revision. I was a hedonist. This act can’t be accomplished by AI, medicine, exercise, diet, or therapy. Only me. Once written must be done.
I’ve written in the genre of Creative Nonfiction, integrating the events through dialogue, journal entries, and a third-person narrative. Within three locations, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Los Angeles, California, and Saratoga Springs, NY. Greta (me) exposes the mutilation gaslighting abuse inflicts on her emotions, psychology, mental and physical health, and her finances.
Greta, in our last discussion this fall, is when the trunk of truth took center stage. She acknowledged her inability to contribute financially to the mortgages. ‘ I could have sought employment in another gallery, or worked in the hotel, but I was determined to be independent, to develop profits with vacation rentals, long-term rentals, and then to sell. I was pointedly wrong. I’ve been scolding and admonishing myself for five years, and I don’t know when this will stop.’ Greta did not allow self-punishment to end. The more she turned off the outside world, let her thoughts free to roam, she felt debased. She had not taken notice of the signals from Dodger, how depressed and disgusted he was with their financial ambiguity.
I’ve written in the genre of Creative Nonfiction, integrating the events through dialogue, journal entries, and a third-person narrative. Within three locations, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Los Angeles, California, and Saratoga Springs, NY. Greta (me) exposes the mutilation gaslighting abuse inflicts on her emotions, psychology, mental and physical health, and her finances.
When I spoke with Greta in November and asked to see the next journal book, she replied instantly, ‘There’s nothing worth writing about. I breezed through it, and it’s all about what to sell of my treasures, finances, and whiny words.’ I asked if she’d send me the journal just in case there is a good transition to the next season. She said, All right. I imagine she ripped out the pages she didn’t want to reveal.
FROM THE JOURNAL
day in bed, emptied into a slab of molasses. In the next room, half-wrapped boxed books, photographs, summer clothes that need to be stored.
Fall light appears in the dining music room and falls on a stack of Swing vinyl. I need to listen to this music in the winter. I search for jobs on Indeed in the gallery museum category. What the heck! There are so many requirements I’ve never heard of. It’s all tech, and I’m not an alpha beast expert in SEO, platforms, social media, Excel, Adobe, and PowerPoint. I do have experience. I am passionately curious about artists’ lives and art history. Now I am the one being interviewed by a thirty-year-old when once I was on the other side, a juxtaposition of reality.That kind of thinking got me into trouble, too much imagination and not enough reality. What is the name of that kind of person? Escapist, misfit, eccentric, dreamer?
The Follies House-Broadway Suite Vacation Rental 2003. What a marvelous time I had decorating.
I’ve written in the genre of Creative Nonfiction, integrating the events through dialogue, journal entries, and a third-person narrative. Within three locations, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Los Angeles, California, and Saratoga Springs, NY. Greta (me) exposes the mutilation gaslighting abuse inflicts on her emotions, psychology, mental and physical health, and her finances.
A thirty -five-year bond broken by, sudden estrangement, psychological abuse, foreclosure, and gaslighting. Financial and legal burdens are presented in dark humor while tracking Greta’s will to survive through the power of friendship.
Gaslighting Greta is a suspenseful and deeply personal true story about the mysteries people create, the truths we sometimes resist, the enduring power of love, and the unexpected freedom found through self-reckoning and forgiveness.
I’ve written in the genre of Creative Nonfiction, integrating the events through dialogue, journal entries, and a third-person narrative. Within three locations, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Los Angeles, California, and Saratoga Springs, NY. Greta (me) exposes the mutilation gaslighting abuse inflicts on her emotions, psychology, mental and physical health, and her finances.
I chose a new theme, and it is more complicated than figuring out how to build a house if you’ve never done it before. None of the links’ work, the block that forces you to write inside its parameters and the template choices don’t operate without a manual. I’ve written to the “Happy Tech Engineer” 5 times. No help at all. I’ll be working on this.
I’ve written in the genre of Creative Nonfiction, integrating the events through dialogue, journal entries, and a third-person narrative. Within three locations, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Los Angeles, California, and Saratoga Springs, NY. Greta (me) exposes the mutilation gaslighting abuse inflicts on her emotions, psychology, mental and physical health, and her finances.
Pop-up thought. I hear it all the time, if you don’t know our countries history, our enemies and allies, you cannot understand the present. Why then are we, as individuals asked to move on, avoid and exorcise our past? Dylan probably sang the answer.
I’ve written in the genre of Creative Nonfiction, integrating the events through dialogue, journal entries, and a third-person narrative. Within three locations, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Los Angeles, California, and Saratoga Springs, NY. Greta (me) exposes the mutilation gaslighting abuse inflicts on her emotions, psychology, mental and physical health, and her finances.
Truth is out of style, it rather went the way of a six-hundred page novel, bicycles built for two, print magazines, handwritten mailed letters and holiday cards, classic modesty, privacy, discretion, trust to a stranger (after you have googled and backgrounded the person) and many other authenticates we don’t have the time or patience to endure. I’m leaving out acronyms because those change daily.
We take short cuts, and improvise our way through the encrypted labyrinth of electronic devices and political divided modernism. We are in a revolution, it’s been coined Cancel Culture, that’s just a tagline. Our Democrats and Republicans, are trafficking disinformation. Not a day goes by that a political analyst or news anchor doesn’t say it. The parties have developed fox and hound instincts.
9/13 First basting of Autumn doesn’t drape the beaches; I’d have to go to Julian. I love Julian, once I got this wild idea to buy dozens of pies and set up a display in local grocery stores. I got a wholesale price and loaded up my tiny kitchen with pies. Then I took them to the grocery stores, and open spaces in shsopping centers. I sold them! What I didn’t do was get a contract so the Julian Pie Company joined in and signed a contract with the stores to sell them directly from their shelves. I ate a lot of apple pies that autumn.
IMAGINE the USA was your city. Go a step further and imagine it was your community. One more step, your neighborhood. What do you think? Are you safe? Are you prospering: emotionally, professionally, financially? Are your circle of friends, family, associates dancing jubilee? If I wake up hopeful, without muscle cramps, anxiety, a friend in crisis, and a new alert, I write. . The melody of writing is like playing a violin or a guitar, it marinates the suffering, conflict, threats, political disagreement, Antisemitism, and violence beyond my front door. I am thankful that I found this little quiet friendly complex of studios.
I’ve written in the genre of Creative Nonfiction, integrating the events through dialogue, journal entries, and a third-person narrative. Within three locations, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Los Angeles, California, and Saratoga Springs, NY. Greta (me) exposes the mutilation gaslighting abuse inflicts on her emotions, psychology, mental and physical health, and her finances.
I am leaning into naturalness more than the keyboard, screen and far from the madding crowd.
You hear a chime the moment it responds to a breeze. The sound is beautiful, like rain on a metal rooftop and wind in the trees. The chime improvises its sounds and movements. This abstraction reminds me of sensitivity. It can be soft and gentle, nurturing the souls of those who are less peaceful.Or it can be like pounding surf on a frail body.
Back at the desk, sensitivity reigns me in when I am stunned by these acronyms. What does DMing mean so I asked and it is this, Dungeon Mastering, or are they referring to Direct Messaging?Then came IRL, what could that be? IN REAL LIFE!
I’m going outdoors right now, this is crawling up my back like a slimy snake. We have to identify real life?
I’ve written in the genre of Creative Nonfiction, integrating the events through dialogue, journal entries, and a third-person narrative. Within three locations, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Los Angeles, California, and Saratoga Springs, NY. Greta (me) exposes the mutilation gaslighting abuse inflicts on her emotions, psychology, mental and physical health, and her finances.
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