Showing results by author "Mark Winegardner" in All Categories

Thirty-five years ago, Mario Puzo's great American tale, The Godfather, was published, and popular culture was indelibly changed. Now, in The Godfather Returns, acclaimed novelist Mark Winegardner continues the story, the years not covered in Puzo's best-selling book or in Francis Ford Coppola's classic films.

The third installment in Mario Puzo's epic chronicle of the Corleone crime family - one of the most enduring lineages in American literature and cinema - achieves a stunning crescendo with a story that imagines the role of the Mafia in the assassination of a young, charismatic president.

Thirty-five years ago, Mario Puzo's great American tale, The Godfather, was published, and popular culture was indelibly changed. Now, in The Godfather Returns, acclaimed novelist Mark Winegardner continues the story, the years not covered in Puzo's best-selling book or in Francis Ford Coppola's classic films.

The third and final installment in Mario Puzo's epic chronicle of the Corleone crime family - one of the most enduring lineages in American literature and cinema - achieves a stunning crescendo with a story that imagines the role of the Mafia in the assassination of a young, charismatic president.

"The bloody victory of the Corleone Family was not complete," begins the final chapter of Mario Puzo's The Godfather, "until a year of delicate manoeuvring established Michael Corleone as the most powerful Family chief in the United States." The Godfather: The Lost Years takes place in the years 1955-65, but it is built upon the story of that "year of delicate political manoeuvring" and how, in winning the battle of that year, Michael Corleone set the stage to lose the war.

It's 1963 in New York, and outside the fortified building owned by Michael, newly undisputed Boss of all Bosses, a parade of people are waiting to ask the great man for favours. Among the visitors are former mob rivals, an emissary from the mayor of New York, and even faces from the past, like Jonny Fontane. All come to pay homage.