STREET SOLDIER

Reluctant reformed criminal Mackenzie delivers a gritty tale of stunted childhood, vicious criminality, and struggle for redemption, all with the Irish flavor of South Boston.

Born in 1958, Southie native Mackenzie was delivered to and then delivered from a miserably unfit set of parents (“I came . . . from shit stock,” he reminisces), but didn’t have any better luck with the foster system. Beaten, molested, and generally made miserable, the author unsurprisingly developed a strong survivor’s instinct and a mean streak a mile wide. In his early teens, Mackenzie began supporting himself by breaking and entering homes. He indulged his constant desire to fight with plenty of street brawling; detailing how he’d break each and every one of an opponent’s ribs, Eddie Mac reports somewhat redundantly that he “was vicious as they come, a monster.” As such, he came to the attention of mob boss Whitey Bulger. Mackenzie's story of how he became a dedicated enforcer for the man who controlled Southie is full of the standard convolutions of the lives of outlaws. Sometime jailbird, party to various scams, drug dealer, gleeful and dedicated womanizer, conflicted mentor to youth as troubled as he had been, Mackenzie has a textbook checkered past, and the reader is run ragged just trying to remember all the characters the author loved or crossed. His tale is no less engaging for all that, however; the narrative voice rings with energy and brings to life the insular, brash streets of a Southie that no longer exists—though it’s still plenty tough down there. Eventually, Whitey rats him out and it all comes to an end, with Eddie cooperating with the government to avoid prison and care for his two youngest daughters. (He has five.)

A tour of life on the edge with a charming, terrifying rogue.