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Searching... McMinnville Public Library | Puzo, M. | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
"Dazzling, passionate, a masterwork that ranks with Puzo's best."
--Nicholas Pileggi, author of Wiseguys
"One of his most satisfying works....A thoroughly entertaining posthumous present from one of the masters of popular fiction."
--Booklist
Mario Puzo's final masterwork. A sweeping epic saga of corruption, greed, treachery, and sin, The Family is the ultimate crowning achievement of the #1 New York Times bestselling novelist who gave the world The Godfather, arguably the greatest Mafia crime novel ever written. In The Family, Puzo--whom the Washington Post calls, "A serious American talent"--plunges reader into the colorful tumult of the Italian Renaissance, immersing them in the roiling intrigues and deadly affairs of the remarkable family whose name has always been synonymous with power, corruption, poison, and murder: the infamous Borgias.
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 (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Before his death in 2001, Puzo (The Last Don) had begun work on a novel featuring the 15th-century Borgias, whom he regarded as "the original crime family." There are obvious parallels between the Borgias and the Corleone clan immortalized in The Godfather, but the resemblances are mostly superficial, at least as they are presented in this limp historical romance. The story opens with Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia manipulating papal elections in 1492 to become the new Pope Alexander. Determined to establish a family dynasty, he appoints his son Cesare cardinal in his stead and, after a strategically engineered episode of incest between siblings Cesare and Lucrezia, begins ruthlessly eliminating rivals and marrying his children into alliances with the offspring of noble families of France and Spain. But Cesare would rather be a soldier, and Lucrezia would rather marry for love; these conflicted desires contribute as much as risky political power plays to undoing the Borgias in a single generation. Though Gino (Puzo's companion, author of Then an Angel Came) is credited for the posthumous completion, Puzo's true collaborator is history, and it proves a difficult partner. Obligated not to deviate from known facts, the narrative whizzes methodically through highlights of the Renaissance, embellishing events with snatches of imagined dialogue, purple prose ("For love can steal free will using no weapons but itself") and cameos by Machiavelli, Michelangelo and da Vinci. Overwhelmed by the vast pageant of events, the characters never achieve dramatic stature. Puzo's diehard fans will surely put the novel on their summer hit list, but they may feel, in Sonny Corleone's words, that "this isn't personal, it's business." Major ad/promo; simultaneous HarperAudio and Large Print edition.(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
The late (1920-99) Puzo's last novel, completed by his companion Gino, is historical fiction, about the 15th-century Borgia clan-a book on which Puzo had worked sporadically since 1983. The scattershot composition is all too obvious. Canned history predominates, and minimal dramatic action is more often summarized than portrayed. Nor are Puzo's characters especially compelling, though the cast includes such notable late-Renaissance figures as Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia, first vice-chancellor (that is, consigliere) to Pope Innocent, then himself pontiff; the children this "son of the church" fathers on his various mistresses (such as infamous siblings Cesare and Lucrezia); and immortals like Niccolò Machiavelli, Michelangelo Buonarotti, and Leonardo da Vinci (the last of whom advises the military-minded Cesare on the construction of impregnable fortifications). The story is focused almost exclusively on shifting political alliances and the arranged marriages that create and sustain them-and machinations involving the royalty and nobility of Rome, Naples, France, and Spain tend quickly to blur together in the reader's mind. Puzo and Gino inject some juice into the ongoing incestuous love between much-married Lucrezia and her vainglorious brother, but the latter is so preoccupied with conquering new territories (ostensibly for the glory of the church) that we soon lose interest in their fabled amorality. The fates of a Roman satirist who unwisely vilifies Cesare and of the radical Dominican friar Savonarola are promising subplots only very sketchily developed. Alas, all these gorgeously bedecked schemers aren't anything like the charismatic monsters we expect (we know Vito and the other Corleones; Rodrigo Borgia and his brood are no Corleones). They're number-crunching, publicity-conscious powerbrokers: a bunch of 15th-century Dick Cheneys. The old, black magic just isn't here. The Family is Godfather Lite. Eminently skippable. First printing of 250,000
Library Journal Review
Much will probably be made of this last novel by the celebrated author of The Godfather and a slew of other gangster novels. After Puzo's death in 2001, this historical fiction was completed by Carol Gino, his companion. The subject is the misunderstood family Borgia, who were sometimes malevolent, always maligned, and mostly political part Clintons, part Kennedys, part Sopranos. Spaniard Rodrigo Borgia becomes Pope Alexander VI and moves into the Vatican with his mistresses and children. Alexander deeply loves yet still controls his offspring, including the ambitious and handsome warrior Cesare, who wants to shed his cardinal robes to lead the papal army in conquest of central Italy; the sweet but flawed Lucretia, whose incestuous relationship with Cesare raises eyebrows; and lusty Juan, who carries on with the wife of little brother Jofre, who in turn becomes murderously jealous. Most of the melodramatic murder and mayhem comes straight out of the history books, but the characters lack depth, with their motivations only mildly explored. This late 15th-century family's story is more soap opera than serious treatment of the troubled dynasty that influenced the Renaissance. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 6/15/01.] David Nudo, formerly with "Library Journal"(c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.