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: the war to make the Family legitimate, the war to keep the Corleones supremely in power, the war to stay true to his father's wishes, the war to give not just his Family but his family a safe and happy life. The Godfather: The Lost Years is not just a sequel. A magnificent novel in its own right, by an acclaimed young American novelist, it traces: the nexus of ambitious, audacious decisions that Michael Corleone implements, their ultimate failure, and, after the Family's literal and figurative years in the wilderness (of Las Vegas), Michael's literal, physical return to New York, and his attempts to regain control there.
Mark Winegardner was born and raised in Bryan, Ohio, near Exit 2, a town of 8,000 which supplies the world with its Dum-Dum suckers and Etch-a-Sketches. His parents owned an RV dealership there, and every summer he traveled with his family across the USA in various travel trailers and motorhomes. By the time he was 15, he had been in all 48 contiguous states. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude from Miami University and went on to receive a master of fine arts degree in fiction writing from George Mason University. He published his first book at age 26, while still in graduate school. He has taught at Miami, George Mason, George Washington, and John Carroll Universities, and is now a professor in the creative writing program at Florida State University in Tallahassee, Florida.
Winegardner has won grants, fellowships and residencies from the Ohio Arts Council, the Lilly Endowment, the Ragdale Foundation, the Sewanee Writers Conference and the Corporation of Yaddo. His books have been chosen as among the best of the year by the New York Times Book Review, Chicago Sun-Times, Los Angeles Times, the New York Public Library, and USA Today. His work has appeared in GQ, Playboy, Ploughshares, TriQuarterly, DoubleTake, Family Circle, The Sporting News, Witness, Story Quarterly, American Short Fiction, Ladies Home Journal, Parents and The New York Times Magazine. Several of his stories have been chosen as Distinguished Stories of the Year in The Best American Short Stories.
