![]() ![]() We all know the broad strokes of what happened next: the book was a mega hit, the movies even bigger hits, and Puzo won two Oscars for his screenplay adaptations. ![]() Writing fiction just wasn’t considered a viable career back then. Even that ambition was just a means to an end: before publishing The Godfather, he was regarded by his own family as a “chooch,” derived from the Italian ciuccio, which translates roughly to donkey, dummy, idiot, moron. In a 1996 appearance on Charlie Rose, the author spoke with refreshing candor about his thwarted efforts to make it as a literary star, and how he wrote his third novel with an eye toward capturing the largest audience possible. With all due respect to the late Puzo, whose most famous novel turns 52 today, I don’t think he would have recommended it on those grounds either. ![]() If you’re a lover of great sentences (and if you’re on Lit Hub, you probably are), I can’t in good conscience recommend that you read Mario Puzo’s The Godfather. ![]()
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