Brother Frank

The son of a mobster father and an abusive mother, Minucci spent his childhood confined in one chamber of horrors after another. As an adolescent in New Jersey, rebelling against a set of good but rigid foster parents, he turned to petty crime. Reform school and juvenile detention followed, with a stint in the army chosen as an alternative to jail. Minucci careened through a series of increasingly violent lifestyles, from biker to hippie drug dealer to small-time operator on the periphery of the mob. After hiding out two years in Maine, selling stolen cars, he ended his volatile marriage, then tried various jobs on Staten Island, some legitimate. As a store detective combating shoplifting by beating up offenders, he met the woman who would become his second wife. Unbeknownst to her, however, he continued his illegal activities, including cocaine dealing. Minucci's powerful firsthand account of becoming addicted to his own product illustrates why he is now such a popular prison and street minister. His terrifying and inspiring story tells of his living in a self-created hell until a series of seemingly miraculous events (including near-death experiences) brought him to God and transformed his life. Now a reformed criminal, recovered addict, movie (Carlito's Way) and TV actor and apparently loving husband and father, Minucci reaches out to help others who suffer as he once did, through his ChristWay ministries and also through this searing memoir. Sixteen pages of b&w photos not seen by PW. (Jan.)