Five-Finger Discount

With deadpan humor and obvious affection, Five-Finger Discount recounts the story of an unforgettable New Jersey family of swindlers, bookies, embezzlers, and mobster-wannabes. In the memoir Mary Karr calls "a page-turner," Helene Stapinski ingeniously weaves the checkered history of her hometown of Jersey City-a place known for its political corruption and industrial blight-with the tales that have swirled around her relatives for decades. Navigating a childhood of toxic waste and tough love, Stapinski tells an extraordinary tale at once heartbreaking and hysterically funny.