Weaving together events witnessed personally and those gleaned from friends, associates, historians, FOIPA, INS and archives of the Department of Justice, author Luellen Smiley’s memoir is a brief, heartfelt genuine reconstruction of family’s relationships of the past that neither dwells on nor dramatizes the true image of her father Allen Smiley, his allegiance to Benjamin ‘Bugsy’ Siegel and the criminal world.
Author Luellen Smiley details her childhood and growing up days as a gangsters daughter- elusive as it may be by immersing her readers through intriguing happenings of everyday and events of the bygone years that justify her fathers masked behavior and restrictions for his adored daughter.
Definitely ‘Cradle of Crime: A Daughter’s Tribute’ is a straight forward homage to a father and a triumphant tale of a daughter who broke barriers of secrets to reach the hardcore reality through her hardship and research. A not-to-be missed 5 star read ‘Cradle of Crime: A Daughter’s Tribute’ is a book for those who care for family morals and values and are willing to accept poignant twists in one setting. Highly recommended.
ADVENTURESS IN LIVINGNESS this week ends with new directions in living. Before that happens, you have to get lost, detached, and miserable. It messes up your social life, your routines, your comfort, and your partner. I don’t have one, so it’s all up to me.
Men wonder why women change so often, why we are spirited unicorns one day, and mules the next. It comes from the universal need to roam, to feel new sensations and passions, and to find more things to love. Even our closets are overflowing with love: “I love those shoes, I love that coat.” We replace our wardrobes because we need more garments to love.
At the crossroads of some moment in time, I stopped loving material things, my reflection, and went looking for a deeper direction of sensation.
It started last year, when my life was tangled up in two projects that were not progressing. As long as someone didn’t raise the curtain on my imaginary life, I stayed right there, like a gearshift left in neutral. When failure and rejection continued to knock me on the shoulder, I welcomed the familiar knock and remained stationary.
The exact moment I decided to shift gears was a painful one. I let go of both projects that were obstructing my motion. I have extracted the nature of the projects because it really is irrelevant. After I let go, and watched those long-term efforts just dangle from boxes, notebooks, and letters of correspondence, the straight of my back curved. Where is my direction? Where are any of us going anyway, except away from that moment we have no control?
If I asked why this happened, and that happened, I was then distracted by some woman in the car next to me who was having more fun in her convertible talking on her cell phone. Routines were becoming burdens, and my favorite places of comfort were boring. Encouragement came from writing columns, reading letters, and those long, solitary road trips in the night. I felt like I was sleeping, but even in that state of detachment people were finding me, and shaking me up.
I remembered one of the faintest memories of my childhood. I cannot even recall the place I was, or who was there; most certainly, it was not my father and mother. We were camping out and I was in a sleeping bag on the hard gravel ground. It was so unfamiliar to me, the simplicity of the natural surroundings, the heavy black balm of tranquility, and the brightness of each star. I lied awake most of the night talking to my fellow campers, and at some point they said to go to sleep. I could not close my eyes. The adventure had swept me into a state of alertness, the kind that makes you feel extraterrestrial. That night must have taught me to welcome new adventures. Sometimes they have ruined months of my life, but most definitely, at the end, I sprung up with a new line of faith.
Again, I am leaving out particulars because it is not the direction I took or what I’ve chosen. After all, it could be anything. We all want to roam, and love, and find some nugget of truth at the end of the road. I think women need to roam more now than men.
A candid and enthralling memoir, CRADLE OF CRIME – A Daughter’s Tribute is the debut release from Luellen Smiley and it proves one of the most gripping and powerful books in its genre. Certainly no mean feat, given the swelling number of similarly themed offerings but Smiley does well to distinguish hers with painstaking research, a broad narrative sweep and intellectual grip to deliver a fascinating and revealing read, for the events it covers.
The storytelling isn’t redemptive with much of the most compelling material in this book being intensely personal but it is a very human story that dispels hype and myth and gives us a telling glimpse of a remarkable life. Weaving together several stories it makes a vivid and notable contribution to the mafia debate which invariably swings between the codes of honor and family values so often portrayed on the silver screen to a brutal criminal organization focused only on the accumulation of wealth. In contrast, Luellen finds a far more equitable balance in her reflections, and it makes for a genuinepage-turner.
Extremely well written, fans of this ever popular genre will find CRADLE OF CRIME – A Daughter’s Tribute a fascinating read and it is recommended without reservation.
The embryo of thought. Sometimes, it is negligible, as is life. I am the puzzle maker. Every time I try to carve the right size square, I fall off the board and have more material to write about! The puzzle is so vast that it covers our lifetime and the pieces are the choices and non-choices that fit into themes. We are all a puzzle.
My life is like a melody, a Gershwin tune. As a dancer and prancer at heart, I feel and think with movement of mind. Today, on a translucent composite of sunshine and clouds, my heart is on the people surviving Hurricane Helene. Climate, warnings, rescue efforts, and the stories of human sacrifice to save lives will analyze this puzzle of devastation. All of those risking their own lives to save strangers are my heroes. One hero saves one life. Just imagine.
My emotional tail is wagging. Curled up in my desk chair, I feel almost as if I was born in this chair. It’s cushioned me through a cyclone of adventures in livingness. This piece of writing was handwritten on a tablet back in late January. I’ve made some minor additions and deletions. Before submitting to a publisher, the editor I used asked me, “Why do you keep switching between past and present tense?” I told her I don’t control that until I’m in final editing. My control over my writing is identical to how I live. Acting on impulse, expanding the mundane into a musical, feasting on all the emotions, and fabricating thorny Walter Mitty encounters. I don’t even think of applying proven methods; I make up new ones. Back to this plateau of solitude. Love what you have, and especially yourself, with all your flaws. Integrity is more critical; be proud not just for yourself, but because someone out there needs you.
PART TWO: After reading this and while emptying the trash, I was struck by this: the big payback to living as I described is an adaptation to proven methods. I’m learning pragmatic over poetic.
I looked at the list. The list looks back at me; trivial, trite, redundant, so I turn on the news. The sky has taken the bail, the air is earnest spring, clouds and impending rain like a suspense novel you just started reading.
The list is still in front of me. Call the bank for the fourth time this week. Their new and highly improved website refuses to give me access. Find the copy of the passport application I just submitted. Next, pack up winter clothes and replace them with spring-summer. This obligation irritated me until late afternoon, and then in one swift harmonious leap, I packed up the winter clothes and removed them from my eyesight. Then, I heard a breeze, a solid applicable one that needed to blow through the winter staleness. I opened all the doors and windows that I can open, and let the house breathe. I’ve been quarantined since a week ago Saturday with Covid. It was not as agonizing as I’d imagined. Two days of annoying muscle and nerve pain, and flopping over four or five times a day to sleep. Today, I will use my energy to cross off the mindless tasks.
Next on the list, are estimates on the spring cleanup of five hundred or more dead stalks, leaves, bushes, etc to make Follies ready for spring. Internal conversation goes like this, I should do it myself, save the hundreds they will charge, but where do I empty all the leaves? The village has rules about placing leaves on the street. Too physical, back to the list.
Submissions for publication, are the most tedious and necessary acts if you are a writer. Nope, not in the mood for that. So I took a drive along a country road, with the top down, and listened to Joe Bataan, a waist-twisting Salsa boogaloo disco singer. I turned around after fifteen minutes, even Joe cannot spring my spirit to life.
My relationship with the world is not dependent on what happens to me. It is with Ukraine. My heartbeat is in slow motion as I watch the latest news feed from Zelensky. He is holding a press conference this Saturday. It lasted two hours or more. As the camera scanned the packed room of reporters; expressions rooted in awe, admiration, eagerness, and razor-sharp comprehension I thought, they resemble a child’s face the first time a book is read aloud. Within the hour’s conference, a news blip surfaced. Blinken and Austin will meet with Zelensky in Kyiv on Sunday. My suspicion is they were watching.
As I sat down to dinner, I thought of the announcement earlier that day, “One loaf of bread fed forty people in a bomb shelter. How do we live within the torture, death, and starvation? How do we get up and laugh or enjoy an outing? For me, I have not found a way.
CRADLE OF CRIME-A Daughter’s Tribute is a historical memoir that frames my father’s association with the American Jewish Mafia, and more specifically his devotion to Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel. It has taken twenty years to publish this book. After hundreds of agent rejections, I threw the dice on self-publishing. It has been a challenging and rewarding experience. I am writing my second book, CRADLE OF FRIENDS.
ADVENTURERS IN SINGLE LIVINGNESS 
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