Search - A Safe Place: The True Story of a Father, a Son, a Murder

Growing up in Hell's Kitchen, New York, the author endured and survived a home life of violence and domestic abuse. The love/hate relationship between him and his father is related in unflinching detail. The spousal abuse suffered by his mother is sad, but her own part in submitting to and allowing it to continue, as it is told, makes it almost understandable. At age 14,the author learned that his father had murdered his first wife and had spent a number of years in prison. Obsessed with learning all of the facts surrounding the act,the author spent years searching for information about his father and this event. Along with the search, the love he had for his father slowly melted away as he saw a man he feared and vowed never to be like. Anyone who has has a rotten childhood should read this book; it attests to the ability of the spirit to survive and overcome.

I could hardly put this book down. I don't know how anyone could live a life like that or how a man could be such an awful person.

Very GooD! Incredible insight into Carcaterra's childhood. He's a great writer and this book is no different.

I cannot understand for the life of me why this book received rave reviews .... Mario was merely a con man sociopath in a time before the word was ever invented .... how can a boy worship a father that brutally beats his mother all the while calling her horrendous lowdown street names in front of his son many, many times and he has many affairs with women openly with the entire neighborhood of Hell's Kitchen knowing.

I wanted to find out why he killed his first wife (should've known since Mario was a perfect example of a narcissistic controller and controllers don't like the word no or to be pushed aside), otherwise I would have put the book down after the first wife beating .... not to speak of anybody else who dared cross him about anything .... the man was a sociopathic BRUTE.

His mother should have gone with her gut feeling in the beginning of the relationship.

Interesting story. It was good to read once - would not keep to read over and over.

This is one of the best memoirs I have read. Very good book, I could not put it down.