Giovino, Andrea

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GIOVINO, Andrea

PERSONAL: Born in New York, NY; common-law marriage to Frank Lino (marriage ended); common-law marriage to John Fogarty (marriage ended); children: four.

ADDRESSES: Home—Bucks County, PA. Agent— Blanca Oliviery, Avalon Publishing Group, 245 West 17th St., 11th Floor, New York, NY 10011.

CAREER: Formerly involved in various criminal activities, including drug dealing and larceny; speaker. Has appeared on radio programs across the United States, as well as on television, including on 60 Minutes and The Montel Show.

WRITINGS:

(With Gary Brozek) Divorced from the Mob: My

Journey from Organized Crime to Independent Woman, Carol & Graf (New York, NY), 2004.

WORK IN PROGRESS: Memoirs.

SIDELIGHTS: In September of 1992, the Drug Enforcement Agency made a sweeping arrest of twenty male mobsters and one woman in an effort to break up a major mob-run drug ring. The woman was Andrea Giovino, and in Divorced from the Mob: My Journey from Organized Crime to Independent Woman, coauthored with Gary Brozek, Giovino explains how she came to be part of that ring, among many other illegal activities, and how she managed to extricate herself from that life.

One of ten children born to a woman who ran an illegal gambling operation in her basement, Giovino was encouraged to steal from the local grocery store and to get to know her mother's gangster clients. Her beauty and boldness soon attracted a lieutenant in the Bonanno crime family, who became her common-law husband and the father of her children. Soon, she was living the high life, dealing drugs, and getting to know John Gotti and Sammy "the Bull" Gravano. It was a violent but often luxurious world, and according to New York Times Book Review contributor Mark Kamine, "Giovino is most convincing when her conscience takes a rest. Her paens to brute strength and murder, and the good life they provide, are astonishingly unapologetic." After her arrest, facing ten years in prison, she decided to cooperate with investigators for the sake of her young children. In her book Giovino does not hold back the sordid details. "Great Literature it's not, but Giovino's memoir is raw and very real," noted a Publishers Weekly reviewer.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Brozek, Gary, and Andrea Giovino Divorced from theMob: My Journey from Organized Crime to Independent Woman, Carol & Graf (New York, NY), 2004.

PERIODICALS

Booklist, April 15, 2004, Margaret Flanagan, review of Divorced from the Mob, p. 1409.

Entertainment Weekly, April 2, 2004, Gregory Kirschling, review of Divorced from the Mob, p. 70.

Kirkus Reviews, March 1, 2004, review of Divorced from the Mob, p. 209.

Library Journal, April 15, 2004, review of Divorced from the Mob, p. 102.

New York Times Book Review, October 31, 2004, Mark Kamine, review of Divorced from the Mob, p. 20. Publishers Weekly, March 8, 2004, review of Divorced from the Mob, p. 59.