The Bookworm: ‘Son of Scarface’ Doesn’t Always Add Up

Terri Schlichenmeyer The Bookwoorm

Ah, dear old Dad… He taught you all about fishing and football. He introduced you to your first engine, and he showed you how to fix it. He was Master of the Grill and he passed the legacy to you. He took you to his favorite hang-out and introduced you to his friends.

He kept secrets from you.

In the new book a man digs into his father’s background to answer a question that haunts him: who was his father, really?

When Chris Knight was 13 years old, his beloved father died. Knight’s mother appeared to hate her husband and, as soon as she could after the funeral, she flew through the house, gathering all Bill Knight’s belongings. She put them in trash bags, preparing to wipe him from her memory.

But Chris took one item from the trash: an address book, in which his father had scrawled contacts and phone numbers. Young Chris called someone whose name seemed somehow familiar.

What he heard shocked him.

“Your father was Al Capone’s son.”

Six words Chris Knight never forgot.

Following his father’s death, Knight’s mother more-or-less abandoned her children, leaving them in the care of a mysterious woman who lived hours from the Knight home in New Jersey, but who “knew” when Knight and his sister needed help. Life for the siblings was easier without their mother’s brutality, but Knight was forever haunted by the words of his father’s friend.

As an adult, Knight decided he needed to know the truth. He hired a genealogist and a private investigator, and they sorted through clues which took them from New Jersey to Chicago, Florida to Wisconsin; Danville, Kentucky to Danville, Illinois. Using the internet, Knight found people with links to Bill Knight, but many of them vehemently resisted giving him any information. Digging further, Knight discovered even more mysteries about the man he worshipped.

Was Chris Knight’s father really the son of one of the world’s most notorious gangsters? Was Knight a descendant of an infamous hardened killer?

The word “logic” pops up frequently in this memoir, but “logic” is in the eyes of the beholder here. Yes, “Son of Scarface” is filled with fascinating tales and a mystery that rivals any popular whodunit. Yes, there’s a certain romance still attached to Al Capone, a man who died generations ago.

But author Chris W. Knight takes a few dozen giant Mother-May-I leaps of belief in this memoir that’s part Sherlock Holmes, part “Mommy Dearest” and part “Sopranos”. What he writes makes some sense, but what he “knows” could also be explained in many other ways. His scenarios are mostly conjecture, and readers may agree that his thinking is sound but skewed in an effort to justify his obsession.

This is not to say that this is a bad book. Quite to the contrary, but read it with an entire boxful of grains of salt. “Son of Scarface” is a good enough book, but requires a Big- Daddy-sized stretch of belief to enjoy. The Bookworm is Terri Schlichenmeyer. Terri has been reading since she was 3 years old and she never goes anywhere without a book. She lives on a hill in Wisconsin with two dogs and 11,000 books.