Prodigal Father, Pagan Son: Growing Up Inside the Dangerous World of the Pagans Motorcycle Club

Anthony "LT" Menginie, Kerrie Droban

Macmillan, Mar 29, 2011 - True Crime - 267 pages

Winner of the USA Book News National Book Award for Best Nonfiction True Crime and Best Memoir/Autobiography



By the time he was thirteen, he already had attended thirteen funerals.

Abandoned by his mother, and with his father, "Mangy" Menginie--president of the Pagans Motorcycle Club, Philadelphia chapter--in jail, Anthony "LT" Menginie is raised inside the Pagans and inducted into a life of sex, violence, drugs, and organized crime.

In Mangy's absence, LT finds a father figure in the Saint, a club member who helps teach him the difference between the club members you respect...and those you fear. The author recounts the power struggles that occur when Mangy is released from jail and tries to resume his role as father and president. Soon all hell breaks loose when Mangy betrays the club by going over to the rival Hells Angels, helping to touch off the "Biker Wars" in Philadelphia. The chapter's new president grooms LT to one day confront his father for his treachery. Faced with an impossible decision, LT has to decide where his loyalties lie.

Prodigal Father, Pagan Son is a voyeuristic glimpse into the shocking and hypnotic underworld of notorious "one-percenter" biker clubs, hit men, drug dealers, and the other individuals who operate under no other rules than the "club code." But more than this, Menginie's story is the gritty and powerful true tale of surviving amid personal trials and tragedies, and of one man's determination to escape to a better life.

What people are saying

LibraryThing Review

User Review  - Rosekat - LibraryThing

Most of the book takes place during the author's childhood. The kid was not a snitch so you miss out on that cloak and dagger element that makes other ooks of this genre so appealing. The book is OK but not quite to the level of Sonny's or Ruben Cavazos (Mongols).

PRODIGAL FATHER, PAGAN SON: Growing Up Inside the Dangerous World of the Pagans Motorcycle Club

User Review  - Jane Doe - Kirkus

Grisly tales of a notorious East Coast biker gang.The book begins promisingly, with a clipped, vibrant prose style, presumably due to the efforts of co-author and defense attorney Droban (Running With ...

About the author

ANTHONY "LT" MENGINIE is the son of Anthony "Mangy" Menginie, former Philadelphia chapter president of the Pagans Motorcycle Club.

KERRIE DROBAN is the author of Running with the Devil: The True Story of the ATF's Infiltration of the Hells Angels, winner of the USA Book News National Book Award for True Crime. She is a criminal defense attorney in Arizona.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Prodigal Father, Pagan Son: Growing Up Inside the Dangerous World of the Pagans Motorcycle Club
• Authors: Anthony "LT" Menginie, Kerrie Droban
• Edition: illustrated
• Publisher: Macmillan, 2011
• ISBN: 0312576544, 9780312576547
• Length: 267 pages
• Subjects: True Crime / Organized Crime