George De Stefano

Welcome to my website.

I am an author, feature writer and critic whose work has appeared in books, magazines, academic journals, newspapers, and online. As a writer I’m most interested in culture and politics and how they intersect. I’ve written about music (rock, blues, Latin, jazz, “world”), film, politics, sexuality and sexual politics. My writing has appeared in The Nation, Newsday, The Advocate, Film Comment, the Gay and Lesbian Review Worldwide, Cineaste, Gay City News (New York) and other print publications.

I currently write about music and popular culture for the leading online publication PopMatters (popmatters.com). You can read my book reviews at the New York Journal of Books (nyjb.com), a lively new forum for online criticism, and at The Italian American Review (City University of New York). I write about world music for Rootsworld (rootsworld.com), and about Italian/​Italian American topics for I-Italy (i-italy.org).

Two recent books feature essays of mine: Mafia Movies: A Reader (University of Toronto) and The Essential Sopranos Reader (University of Kentucky). Published in 2011, both are groundbreaking collections of critical commentary, respectively analyzing American and European films about organized crime, and the acclaimed HBO series that re-invented the gangster genre.

My non-fiction book, An Offer We Can’t Refuse: The Mafia in the Mind of America (Faber and Faber/​Farrar, Straus, Giroux) examines America’s enduring fascination with Italian and Italian American organized crime, as depicted in the movies, on TV, and in fiction. In the book I try to explain why the “Mafia Myth” is one of the longest-running shows in popular culture, and how the mythology relates to the actual history of not only organized crime but of Italian immigration and Italian American history and culture.

The New York Times said “De Stefano knows the gangster genre inside out, making it a pleasure to follow his thoughts on favorites like ‘The Sopranos,’ ‘Donnie Brasco,’ ‘Goodfellas’ and the ‘Godfather’ trilogy…” The Boston Globe called it “a thoughtful, thorough analysis tracing the evolution of these vexing pop-culture icons, why their ‘'dangerous allure’ remains an enduring attraction, and how they impact perceptions about Italian-Americans.” The actor/​director John Turturro said: “For anyone who's interested in the Mafia, An Offer We Can't Refuse is essential reading on the subject.

In 2012, you can see me in a new History Channel documentary, “The Godfather Legacy,” about the film’s continuing influence on popular culture 40 years after its release. I’m a talking head in another documentary, “Beyond Wiseguys” (2008) by Pacific Street Films and Beachcomber Films. The doc was shown in all the major PBS markets and it still pops up from time to time on public television.

I have several projects in development that may present opportunities for agents and editors. Please feel free to contact me (via this website) if my work is relevant to your expertise.

George de Stefano