Joseph Di Prisco discusses and signs "Subway to California"

Diesel, A Bookstore in Brentwood welcomes Joseph Di Priscoto the store to discuss and sign his new memoir, Subway to California, on Thursday, October 9th at 7pm.

In 1961, the Di Priscos fled Brooklyn--and the FBI. The father had been implicated in police corruption and he escaped to California, where his wife and two of her four sons joined him.

Joe, the only member of the family to graduate high school, didn’t seem called to a life of crime, but evidence is mixed. Once he was Brother Joseph in a Catholic novitiate. Later he was named prime suspect in a racketeering investigation. During Vietnam he seized his college administration building, and then played blackjack around the world, staked by big-money backers. He managed Italian restaurants with laughable ineptitude, but also did graduate study and taught for twenty years. Eventually Joe buried his unstable, manipulative, and beautiful mother and his brothers, including his heroin-addicted younger brother. Later, he cared for his father with Alzheimer’s. Subway to California recounts Joe’s battles with personal demons, bargains struck with angels, and truces with family in this richly colorful tale.

Joseph Di Prisco is an educator and writer who has taught for over 20 years in public, independent and Catholic schools, middle school through college.