
The Deeds of My Fathers
How My Grandfather and Father Built New York and Created the Tabloid World of Today
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
$0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Buy for $20.97
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Keith Szarabajka
-
By:
-
Paul David Pope
About this listen
A story that reads like The Godfather has been crossed with Citizen Kane. The Deeds of My Fathers is the riveting true story of two men, a father and a son, who each started with nothing and built an empire.
Generoso Pope, Sr., an Italian immigrant, arrived in New York in 1906 with only pennies in his pocket. He got a job shoveling sand, but through his intelligence, natural leadership, ruthlessness, and ability to woo powerful politicians such as Jimmy Walker and Franklin Roosevelt, he worked his way up to become the biggest provider of cement, just as it was becoming the key building material for New York, vital to landmarks such as Rockefeller Center and Radio City Music Hall.
Gene Pope, Jr. was his father’s choice to inherit and run the business, but Gene’s mother and two brothers forced him out, and he found himself penniless and on his own. With a loan from his godfather, mobster Frank Costello, Gene bought the New York Enquirer. He renamed it the National Enquirer and focused on the paranormal, celebrities, and the hopes and fears of Americans. Gene forced the tabloid into the supermarkets and became a powerful media force, peaking with the seven million copies sold of the blockbuster exposé on the death of Elvis.
Paul David Pope, businessman, philanthropist, and now author, is a third-generation Italian American who launched an investigation into the controversial lives of his father and grandfather almost ten years ago. His team of reporters and researchers generated more than 50,000 pages of material, conducted 450 interviews, amassed thousands of photographs, and scoured presidential papers as well as FBI and CIA files.
©2010 Paul David Pope (P)2010 Blackstone Audio, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
-
The Nazi Hunter
- A Novel
- By: Alan Elsner
- Narrated by: Keith Szarabajka
- Length: 10 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nicknamed “the Nazi Hunter,” Marek Cain has for 10 years been the point man for tracking down ex-Nazis who have fraudulently entered the United States since World War II and bringing them to justice. Late one afternoon, a distraught German woman eludes security and slips into Cain’s office. “I have documents,” she says, “important documents only for the Nazi Hunter.” She promises to bring them the next day. When she doesn’t show, he dismisses her as just another crackpot - until he discovers that she has been brutally murdered.
-
-
Lousy narration
- By kestergayle on 03-13-17
By: Alan Elsner
-
Shoe Dog
- A Memoir by the Creator of Nike
- By: Phil Knight
- Narrated by: Norbert Leo Butz, Phil Knight - introduction
- Length: 13 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this candid and riveting memoir, for the first time ever, Nike founder and CEO Phil Knight shares the inside story of the company's early days as an intrepid start-up and its evolution into one of the world's most iconic, game-changing, and profitable brands.
-
-
Just read it. (or listen, whatever)
- By Dan D on 07-07-16
By: Phil Knight
-
The King of Torts
- A Novel
- By: John Grisham
- Narrated by: Michael Beck
- Length: 11 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The office of the public defender is not known as a training ground for bright young litigators. Clay Carter has been there too long and, like most of his colleagues, dreams of a better job in a real firm. When he reluctantly takes the case of a young man charged with a random street killing, he assumes it is just another of the many senseless murders that hit DC every week. As he digs into the background of his client, Clay stumbles on a conspiracy too horrible to believe.
-
-
Blah, Blah Blah
- By Elizabeth on 02-10-03
By: John Grisham
-
The Plot Against America
- By: Philip Roth
- Narrated by: Ron Silver
- Length: 13 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In an astonishing feat of empathy and narrative invention, our most ambitious novelist imagines an alternate version of American history. In 1940 Charles A. Lindbergh, heroic aviator and rabid isolationist, is elected president. Shortly thereafter, he negotiates a cordial "understanding" with Adolf Hitler while the new government embarks on a program of folksy anti-Semitism.
-
-
Life is imitating Roth's art
- By Matthew on 08-04-16
By: Philip Roth
-
Kane and Abel
- By: Jeffrey Archer
- Narrated by: Jason Culp
- Length: 19 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
William Lowell Kane and Abel Rosnovski, one the son of a Boston millionaire, the other a penniless polish immigrant-born on the same day near the turn of the century on opposite sides of the world-are brought together by fate and the quest of a dream. Two men - ambitious, powerful, ruthless - are locked in a relentless struggle to build an empire, fueled by their all-consuming hatred.
-
-
Kane & Abel - 30 years later
- By Elliot on 10-03-11
By: Jeffrey Archer
-
American Spy
- A Novel
- By: Lauren Wilkinson
- Narrated by: Bahni Turpin
- Length: 10 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It’s 1986, the heart of the Cold War, and Marie Mitchell is an intelligence officer with the FBI. She’s brilliant, but she’s also a young Black woman working in an old boys’ club. Her career has stalled out, she’s overlooked for every high-profile squad, and her days are filled with monotonous paperwork. So when she’s given the opportunity to join a shadowy task force aimed at undermining Thomas Sankara, the charismatic revolutionary president of Burkina Faso whose Communist ideology has made him a target for American intervention, she says yes.
-
-
A Spy Novel for Black folk.
- By AJ Walker on 10-07-19
By: Lauren Wilkinson
-
The Nazi Hunter
- A Novel
- By: Alan Elsner
- Narrated by: Keith Szarabajka
- Length: 10 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nicknamed “the Nazi Hunter,” Marek Cain has for 10 years been the point man for tracking down ex-Nazis who have fraudulently entered the United States since World War II and bringing them to justice. Late one afternoon, a distraught German woman eludes security and slips into Cain’s office. “I have documents,” she says, “important documents only for the Nazi Hunter.” She promises to bring them the next day. When she doesn’t show, he dismisses her as just another crackpot - until he discovers that she has been brutally murdered.
-
-
Lousy narration
- By kestergayle on 03-13-17
By: Alan Elsner
-
Shoe Dog
- A Memoir by the Creator of Nike
- By: Phil Knight
- Narrated by: Norbert Leo Butz, Phil Knight - introduction
- Length: 13 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this candid and riveting memoir, for the first time ever, Nike founder and CEO Phil Knight shares the inside story of the company's early days as an intrepid start-up and its evolution into one of the world's most iconic, game-changing, and profitable brands.
-
-
Just read it. (or listen, whatever)
- By Dan D on 07-07-16
By: Phil Knight
-
The King of Torts
- A Novel
- By: John Grisham
- Narrated by: Michael Beck
- Length: 11 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The office of the public defender is not known as a training ground for bright young litigators. Clay Carter has been there too long and, like most of his colleagues, dreams of a better job in a real firm. When he reluctantly takes the case of a young man charged with a random street killing, he assumes it is just another of the many senseless murders that hit DC every week. As he digs into the background of his client, Clay stumbles on a conspiracy too horrible to believe.
-
-
Blah, Blah Blah
- By Elizabeth on 02-10-03
By: John Grisham
-
The Plot Against America
- By: Philip Roth
- Narrated by: Ron Silver
- Length: 13 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In an astonishing feat of empathy and narrative invention, our most ambitious novelist imagines an alternate version of American history. In 1940 Charles A. Lindbergh, heroic aviator and rabid isolationist, is elected president. Shortly thereafter, he negotiates a cordial "understanding" with Adolf Hitler while the new government embarks on a program of folksy anti-Semitism.
-
-
Life is imitating Roth's art
- By Matthew on 08-04-16
By: Philip Roth
-
Kane and Abel
- By: Jeffrey Archer
- Narrated by: Jason Culp
- Length: 19 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
William Lowell Kane and Abel Rosnovski, one the son of a Boston millionaire, the other a penniless polish immigrant-born on the same day near the turn of the century on opposite sides of the world-are brought together by fate and the quest of a dream. Two men - ambitious, powerful, ruthless - are locked in a relentless struggle to build an empire, fueled by their all-consuming hatred.
-
-
Kane & Abel - 30 years later
- By Elliot on 10-03-11
By: Jeffrey Archer
-
American Spy
- A Novel
- By: Lauren Wilkinson
- Narrated by: Bahni Turpin
- Length: 10 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It’s 1986, the heart of the Cold War, and Marie Mitchell is an intelligence officer with the FBI. She’s brilliant, but she’s also a young Black woman working in an old boys’ club. Her career has stalled out, she’s overlooked for every high-profile squad, and her days are filled with monotonous paperwork. So when she’s given the opportunity to join a shadowy task force aimed at undermining Thomas Sankara, the charismatic revolutionary president of Burkina Faso whose Communist ideology has made him a target for American intervention, she says yes.
-
-
A Spy Novel for Black folk.
- By AJ Walker on 10-07-19
By: Lauren Wilkinson
-
A Good Life
- Newspapering and Other Adventures
- By: Ben Bradlee
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 20 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This is the witty, candid story of a daring young man who made his own way to the heights of American journalism and public life, of the great adventure that took him at only 20 years old straight from Harvard to almost four years in the shooting war in the South Pacific and back, from a maverick New Hampshire weekly to an apprenticeship for Newsweek in postwar Paris, then to the Washington Bureau chief's desk, and finally to the apex of his career at The Washington Post.
-
-
Very interesting and enjoyable
- By P Gates on 10-03-18
By: Ben Bradlee
-
Tinseltown
- Murder, Morphine, and Madness at the Dawn of Hollywood
- By: William J. Mann
- Narrated by: Christopher Lane
- Length: 15 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
By 1920, the movies had suddenly become America's new favorite pastime and one of the nation's largest industries. Never before had a medium possessed such power to influence; yet Hollywood's glittering ascendancy was threatened by a string of headline-grabbing tragedies - including the murder of William Desmond Taylor, the popular president of the Motion Picture Directors Association, a legendary crime that has remained unsolved until now.
-
-
Everybody's a dreamer...
- By Steven on 01-08-15
By: William J. Mann
-
The Brethren
- By: John Grisham
- Narrated by: Frank Muller
- Length: 11 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
They call themselves the Brethren: three disgraced former judges doing time in a Florida federal prison. One was sent up for tax evasion. Another, for skimming bingo profits. And the third, for a career-ending drunken joyride. Meeting daily in the prison law library, taking exercise walks in their boxer shorts, these judges-turned-felons can reminisce about old court cases, dispense a little jailhouse justice, and contemplate where their lives went wrong.
-
-
My Favorite Grisham to Date
- By M.W. on 03-04-03
By: John Grisham
-
When I Stop Talking, You'll Know I'm Dead
- Useful Stories from a Persuasive Man
- By: Jerry Weintraub, Rich Cohen, George Clooney - foreword
- Narrated by: Jerry Weintraub
- Length: 7 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Here is the story of Jerry Weintraub: the self-made, Brooklyn-born, Bronx-raised impresario, Hollywood producer, legendary deal maker, and friend of politicians and stars. No matter where nature has placed him - the club rooms of Brooklyn, the Mafia dives of New York's Lower East Side, the wilds of Alaska, or the hills of Hollywood - he has found a way to put on a show and sell tickets at the door.
-
-
Great stories!
- By Myles on 12-31-14
By: Jerry Weintraub, and others
-
Scandal
- A Manual
- By: George Rush, Joanna Molloy
- Narrated by: George Rush, Joanna Molloy
- Length: 11 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Over fifteen years of dirty secrets, shocking reveals, and all of the celebrity gossip that’s unfit to print . . . but we’re going to anyway. When Jay Z defended himself against unfair charges that he slapped a woman, when Yankee slugger Alex Rodriguez got tagged by an escort agency madam, when Bill O’Reilly dissed Muslim women, and when Ruth Madoff discovered her scam artist husband, Bernie, had also been cheating on her, it all came out in the pages of Rush & Molloy.
-
-
Couldn't finish it
- By Jacob on 01-22-16
By: George Rush, and others
-
The Manchurian Candidate
- By: Richard Condon
- Narrated by: Christopher Hurt
- Length: 9 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Buried deep within the consciousness of Sergeant Raymond Shaw is the mechanism of an assassin, a time bomb ticking toward explosion, controlled by the delicate skill of its Communist masters. Shaw returns from the Korean War to an idolizing and unsuspecting country. What follows is at once a spy story, a love story, and a sobering, yet outrageously funny satire on demagoguery in American politics.
-
-
What a wonderful title!
- By Hunter on 01-27-03
By: Richard Condon
-
Hollywood Godfather
- My Life in the Movies and the Mob
- By: Gianni Russo, Patrick Picciarelli
- Narrated by: Gianni Russo
- Length: 10 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Gianni Russo was a handsome 25-year-old mobster with no acting experience when he walked onto the set of The Godfather and entered Hollywood history. He played Carlo Rizzi, and he didn't have to act - he knew the mob inside and out: from his childhood in Little Italy, where Mafia legend Frank Costello took him under his wing, to having to go on the lam after shooting and killing a member of the Colombian drug cartel in his Vegas club. Along the way, Russo befriended Frank Sinatra and Marlon Brando. Russo had passionate affairs with Marilyn Monroe and Liza Minelli....
-
-
If everything in this book is true; F-n-A!
- By Anonymous User on 04-15-19
By: Gianni Russo, and others
-
The Godfather Returns
- A Novel
- By: Mark Winegardner
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 20 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Thirty-five years ago, Mario Puzo's great American tale, The Godfather, was published, and popular culture was indelibly changed. Now, in The Godfather Returns, acclaimed novelist Mark Winegardner continues the story, the years not covered in Puzo's best-selling book or in Francis Ford Coppola's classic films.
-
-
Puzo lives
- By Janet C. Walker on 11-21-04
By: Mark Winegardner
-
The Best Laid Plans
- By: Sidney Sheldon
- Narrated by: John Rubinstein
- Length: 7 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The first entry in Leslie Stewart's diary read: "Dear Diary; This morning I met the man I am going to marry." It was simple, optimistic statement, without the slightest portent of the dramatic chain of events that was about to occur. The Best Laid Plans takes listeners inside two of America's most powerful and ruthless institutions: the world of politics with it's scandals, corruption, and cover-ups; and that of newspaper publishing, where it is not unusual to use the power of the press to destroy lives - or bring down heads of state - in pursuit of a story or to settle a score.
-
-
A SIT IN YOUR CAR KIND OF AUDIO BOOK! TEN STARS!
- By kk on 03-18-12
By: Sidney Sheldon
-
My Life Without God
- By: William J. Murray
- Narrated by: Al Kessel
- Length: 10 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1963 America's most famous atheist, Madalyn Murray O'Hair, won the landmark lawsuit filed on behalf of her son, William, that effectively banned prayer in public schools. Bill shares in vivid detail his upbringing - the raging battles, his activity in his mother's atheistic empire, his dependence on drugs, and his years as a fugitive. Nearly two decades after the court's decision, Bill came to the end of his personal strength. In desperation he called out to God, and God answered.
-
-
Great book and narrator
- By PandyBlue on 04-15-18
-
Daring
- My Passages - A Memoir
- By: Gail Sheehy
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 14 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Candid, insightful, and powerful, Daring: My Passages is the story of the unconventional life of a writer who dared - to walk New York City streets with hookers and pimps to expose violent prostitution; to march with civil rights protesters in Northern Ireland as British paratroopers opened fire; to seek out Egypt's president Anwar Sadat when he was targeted for death after making peace with Israel.
-
-
Enjoyed unexpectedly
- By Corinne O'Rourke on 09-06-23
By: Gail Sheehy
-
Watergate
- A Novel
- By: Thomas Mallon
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 15 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For all the monumental documentation that Watergate generated - uncountable volumes of committee records, court transcripts, and memoirs - it falls at last to a novelist to perform the work of inference (and invention) that allows us to solve some of the scandal’s greatest mysteries - who did erase those eighteen-and-a-half minutes of tape? - and to see this gaudy American catastrophe in its human entirety. In Watergate, Thomas Mallon conveys the drama and high comedy of the Nixon presidency through the urgent perspectives of seven characters we only thought we knew.
-
-
A great listen
- By Tad Davis on 03-29-12
By: Thomas Mallon
Critic reviews
What listeners say about The Deeds of My Fathers
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
- Norman B. Harley
- 11-10-10
Sound like movie
Great book great narration. I can't wait for this book to turned into a movie or a HBO series.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!