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Summary
Summary
The author of The Godfather returns with a violent and darkly humorous saga of the last great American crime family and its reach into Hollywood and Las Vegas. With keen insights into the authentic life of the mafia, Puzo tells the story of Domenico Clericuzio, a ferocious old man who is determined to secure his family's future in an era of legalized gambling, motion-picture investments, and the threat of government informers. Film rights sold to CBS.
Author Notes
Mario Puzo, best known as the author of The Godfather, was born on October 15, 1920 in the Hell's Kitchen area of New York City. He served in the U. S. Army during World War II, and when he returned attended New York's School for Social Research and Columbia University.
He wrote pulp stories and edited Male magazine before publishing his first novel, The Dark Arena (1955). His works were well-received critically, but failed to generate much revenue until he published his most notable work, The Godfather, which was ultimately made into a trilogy of award-winning movies. Puzo continued writing novels, and his final work, Omerta, was finished not long before his death. He won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay in both 1972, and 1974.
Puzo died on July 2, 1999 in Bay Shore, Long Island. (Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Age withers some writers. Others it ripens toward an Olympian wisdom. So it is with Puzo, who at age 76 returns after a quarter century to the terrain of his greatest success, The Godfather, to tell a second masterful tale of Mafia life. Puzo's vision is broader here, and more dispassionate. Times have changed since the day of the Corleones. America has fragmented, and Puzo's new family, the Clericuzios, the shadowy power behind the Mafia, is feeling modernity's centrifugal force. Though still based in New York, the Family has also scattered to Vegas and, as the novel progresses, to Hollywood. Puzo's protagonist is Cross De Lena, nephew of Don Domenico Clericuzio, his Bruglione in Vegas, who by investing in film may fulfill the Don's wish to legitimize the Family. But in Puzo's world, the search for power and wealth demands brutality; dream factories, whether of Vegas or Hollywood, are awash in vengeance, betrayal and blood. Puzo's take on the film world is scathing, yet there are no caricatures here; his men and women can be seduced by virtue as well as by vice and will throw away a lifetime in pursuit of love. Violence slashes through the narrative, but the real cruelty that laces the plot lies in each character's byzantine manipulations of others; the story line would delight a Medici. Nearly above the fray stand two old men, the Don and a film czar. Knowing what the world is, they neither condemn it nor bless it but acknowledge its wickedness and drink of its passion and beauty. As, in this mesmerizing tale, Puzo himself does, surveying the play of humanity in its mad glory. Major ad/promo; BOMC main selection; simultaneous Random House AudioBook; film rights sold to CBS; foreign rights sold in England, France, Italy, Sweden, Finland, Brazil and Japan. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
Puzo's seventh novel, a monstrously gripping quasisequel to 1969's The Godfather, flavors itself with none of the Corleones so dear to fans of that earlier potboiler but does simmer the same Sicilian marinara, using a more literate recipe. From its Long Island compound, the Clericuzio family, ruled by the twistedly wise Great White Shark Domenico Clericuzio, dominates the nation's Mafia but longs to go legit. For over 30 years, old Domenico has urged the Clericuzios toward fading namelessly into the nation's fabric, into restaurants, construction companies, and legalized gambling. He has given up drugs as operationally too unwieldy, and now seeks nationwide legalized gambling. Peace has reigned since Domenico's young nephew, Pippi De Lena, wiped out the brutal Santadio family in one bloody evening. But Sicilian vengeance knows no time limit, and one shadowy figure remains of mixed Santadio-Clericuzio blood who now seeks payment and rulership of the Clericuzios. Puzo divides his novel mainly into scenes set on Long Island, in Las Vegas, and Hollywood. Pippi runs Xanadu, the crown jewel of Las Vegas casinos, aided by his son Croccifixio, known as Cross. When Cross finds himself stunned by the beauty of Hollywood's leading actress, Athena Aquitane, he decides to help quell her fear of her acid-slinging ex-husband. Athena departs LoddStone Studios, where she's filming the $100M epic Messalina, and goes into hiding until the threat is removed. To get his foot into the legit film industry, Cross buys the unfinished picture from Loddstone, and quickly, permanently resolves Athena's marital problems. After his father Pippi is murdered, Cross sets out to avenge him. But Cross's instincts tell him that old Domenico may be behind his own nephew's murder. Cross, caught between Scylla and Charybdis, may have to go against his own blood if he is to have revenge. Fabulously well-plotted; drunk on luxury. (Film rights to CBS; Book-of-the-Month main selection)
Booklist Review
Puzo's latest novel is a version of the Wars of the Roses within a Mafia context. That fifteenth-century English dynastic struggle for the throne saw cousin pitted against cousin, and Puzo has fashioned the same kind of internecine struggle here. The story opens in 1965, with Don Clericuzio, head of the most powerful Mafia family in the country, deciding to make his enterprises legit. He is looking ahead to his grandchildren's lives, wanting them to enjoy his largesse without the danger inherent in life in the criminal underworld. Zoom--we're transported to the present day and involved in how the don's plans for his family's future are playing out. Hollywood and Las Vegas provide venues for one grandson's attempts, at the expense of another grandson, to undermine the master plan, but all's well that ends well in this surefire best-seller. (Reviewed June 1 & 15, 1996)0679401431Brad Hooper
Library Journal Review
With roots in Sicily and a base in Long Island, Don Domenico Clericuzio and the Clericuzio family have extended their control to the gaming empire in Las Vegas. After years of battling with other mafiosa, the Clericuzios have emerged as the dominant family and now, under the guidance of the old Don, seek to extend their reach into politics, construction, and legal sports gambling. Within Puzo's sprawling novel about the Clericuzio family is a romance involving the handsome but tender-hearted Cross, the Don's nephew, and the beautiful and secretive actress Athena. From his station in Las Vegas as head of the Xanadu Casino Hotel, Cross ventures into Hollywood, which is fraught with its own arcane codes of behavior. He must maneuver among the brutal demands of the family, the cunning wiles of studio heads, and his own blinding love for Athena. Puzo's large cast of finely drawn characters propel this story forwardeven the most minor characters act with believable motivationsthrough many twists and turns up to the surprising denouement. Sure to satisfy Puzo's many fans; recommended for all collections. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 5/1/96.]Linda Landigran, Hanover, N.H. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
