LOUIE'S WIDOW: One Woman's Vengeance Against the Underworld

At the top of her lungs, what's left of them, Cecile/Ceil tells the story of her life programmed on self-destruct from the time when at II she and her best friend-sister (age 13) attempted suicide. Her sister blew her face off at 17; Ceil married David at 15 and she was glad to escape the eighth grade even if it meant being kept pregnant with the five children which Louie Mileto could consider his own when they married, bigamously. Actually Louie was a child too--she had to butter his toast--but as an importer of grass (which she and the kids took to readily--Louie disapproved) be and the family lived high on the hog. But then Louie was sent to jail for four years; she went on to hard drugs; he came back; she tried to stay clean; everything went wrong: his partner Herbie (now in hard drugs too) was arrested; later Louie was cutting Herbie's stuff until Herbie cut him up in pieces and finally Cecile was determined to revenge the death of the man she loved (Louie, by the way, had a string of other wives all over) and turned state's evidence against Herbie. An incredible, inglorious, unedifying story which you'll read shamefacedly on pins and needles.