In 1969, THE GODFATHER began the American public's fascination with the Mafia. This Italian-American epic, featuring patriarch Don Vito Corleone, explores the brutal, lavish lifestyles of New York City's mob bosses: the struggles for power, the respect for family, love, and loyalty, and the consequences of life built around murder, corruption, and revenge. While its heady mixture of sex, violence, and "family" values assured it a place atop the bestseller lists, it achieved longevity through its treatment of mobsters as something more than abstract monsters--as complex characters with hopes, dreams, and fears, but who also just happen to be ruthless killers. It inspired countless homages, tributes, knock-offs, and imitations across all forms of popular media. Television shows like THE SOPRANOS and movies like GOODFELLAS would never have been conceived without it. THE GODFATHER was made into a hugely successful, Oscar-winning film in 1972.
Reissued to coincide with the September Random House release of The Last Don, here is the sweeping saga of a family and of its leader, a friendly and reasonable man who just happens to be the deadliest gang leader in the Cosa Nostra.
Reissued to coincide with the September Random House release of The Last Don, here is the sweeping saga of a family and of its leader, a friendly and reasonable man who just happens to be the deadliest gang leader in the Cosa Nostra.
Review 1:
"This is a big, turbulent, highly entertaining novel with ingredients that should assure it a place on the best-seller lists: ample sex, a veritable orgy of bloodshed in many exotic forms, and several characters titillatingly reminiscent of real-life public figures. Yet is resemblance to the formula bestsellers of the Bernard Geis school ends with those ingredients. Mario Puzo is an extremely talented storyteller, and his tale moves at breakneck speed without ever losing its balance. More important, Puzo proves to be a genuine social historian. THE GODFATHER is fiction, but it is still a valid and fascinating portrait of American's most powerful subculture, the Mafia."
03/10/69
Review 2:
"If Philip Roth has created a Jewish mother who can actually give you heartburn, Mario Puzo has created a Sicilian father who will make you shiver every time you stroll on Mulberry Street. And, with loving care and detail, what Roth has done for masturbation, Puzo has done for murder."
04/27/1969
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