What I’m Reading: The Company She Keeps: The Dangerous Life of a Model Turned Mafia Wife

The Company She Keeps: The Dangerous Life of a Model Turned Mafia Wife is a timepiece from the 1960’s New York mafia era. The author, former model-turned-stunt-car-driver Georgia Durante, shares her dramatic familial experiences with the mafia in this riveting memoir. Ms. Durante also provides deep insight into how she escaped her marriage into the mob and became a successful business owner. The writing is raw and wildly entertaining. If it wasn’t her real life, nobody would’ve believed it as fiction.

The book opens with Georgia describing her challenging childhood when she was raised by a single mom in mid 20th century upstate New York. Due to being from a broken home, Georgia was often marginalized and looked down upon in the provincial town she grew up in. Despite public rejection by polite society in her hometown Georgia always felt loved by her mom and had the strength to persevere. Georgia did not allow her critics to take her down, and her beauty queen looks brought her much success, eventually becoming the Kodak girl in the 1960s. Ultimately Georgia’s beauty was her ticket out of the provincial town she grew up in and into an exciting world that made her the envy of many. However, Georgia learns that all that glitters is not gold.

Shortly after high school Georgia moved to NYC to pursue a modeling career. While Georgia never made it big as a model in NYC, she did meet one of the loves of her life in the Big Apple. Enter Frankie, another Italian who worked for the mafia. Frankie introduced Georgia to a healthy mature relationship, teaching her that she was loveable and deserved good treatment. He also introduced her to speed driving, which she later took up as a career. Despite the blessings that came from the relationship with Frankie, it could not withstand his associations to the mob, and soon Georgia and Frankie broke up. On the rebound, Georgia married a man from back home who she knew from her youth. This marriage also ended rather quickly although she did get a beautiful daughter named Tony from it.

Georgia and Tony left her first husband and fell into the arms of another mafia man, Joe, a snazzy nightclub owner in NY who was fifteen years her senior. This doomed relationship-turned-marriage was plagued with abuse, violence and insanity. Georgia knew she most likely would not get out of this marriage alive so she ran away from it and hid in Los Angeles, hoping to make it big as a model.

Frankie, her original love from NYC, who had remained Georgia’s friend from afar during both her marriages, reappeared in LA to try to save her. (By this point, although Georgia had escaped her abusive second husband, she had a deranged stalker coming after her.) With the help of Frankie and another mafia associate Georgia survived the gun-wielding stalker in Los Angeles only to discover though that other problems are on the horizon–like how to survive in LA while trying to raise a child.

With the help of her good looks, Georgia soon finds yet another would-be husband to help her. Unfortunately, the seemingly good partner Georgia finds for her third and final marriage is a monster in disguise who seems better than the rest but actually turns out worse.

The most shocking part of this memoir is that Georgia Durante survived so much drama and so many near-death experiences that it seems implausible. Even after the numerous abusive relationships, she suffered the stunt car accident that nearly took her life. Georgia Durante is a true survivor, a remarkable woman with a powerful story to tell.

BOTTOM LINE: If you are looking for a raw, action-packed soap opera, this book has it all. Romance, drama, surreal near-death experiences with the mafia are all contained in this well-written memoir about the former Kodak Girl who eventually ran her own stunt car company and eventually achieved massive success working with the likes of Cindy Crawford and other celebrities.