The Family Corleone [Hardcover]

Ed Falco (Author)

Book Description

Release date: May 8, 2012

New York, 1933. The city and the nation are in the depths of the Great Depression. The crime families of New York have prospered in this time, but with the coming end of Prohibition, a battle is looming that will determine which organizations will rise and which will face a violent end.
For Vito Corleone, nothing is more important that his family's future. While his youngest children, Michael, Fredo, and Connie, are in school, unaware of their father's true occupation, and his adopted son Tom Hagen is a college student, he worries most about Sonny, his eldest child. Vito pushes Sonny to be a businessman, but Sonny-17 years-old, impatient and reckless-wants something else: To follow in his father's footsteps and become a part of the real family business.
An exhilarating and profound novel of tradition and violence, of loyalty and betrayal, The Family Corleone will appeal to the legions of fans who can never get enough of The Godfather, as well as introduce it to a whole new generation.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Channels the original so well that readers will be vividly reminded of Puzo's strengths...His moments of blam-blam-blam are ace. Best of all, he supplies a grand set-piece finale--a parade--that will have readers dreaming of just one more movie." (Booklist )

"If you have any knowledge of The Godfather you will love this book. It's a perfect addition to the Corleone saga...When you see this book, buy it. It is written with love for the characters and respect for Puzo. It is also a story that won't quit and I couldn't stop reading. Falco brought me back to a world I love and did it perfectly. As far as I'm concerned this is THE BOOK to buy in 2012." (Crime Spree Magazine )

"A must summer read... Trust me. You'll enjoy." (New York Post )

"What works well is Falco's depiction of Vito Corleone, which captures both the cool reserve of young Vito and the insight he demonstrates as Don....A worthy addition to the lurid world of the Five Families." (Kirkus )

"Falco has captured Puzo's rich prose style and eye for detail...a solid piece of work." (The Washington Post )

"Falco ably exploits the tension between civility and brutality. The result is good, messy fun." (The Guardian (UK) )

"Puzo-worthy." (New York Daily News )

"This early snapshot of the Corleone family is fascinating ...Ed Falco has done yeoman's work in The Family Corleone, meeting the American legend that is its subject matter head-on and creating a tale that demands to be read in one sitting. We already know how it turns out (at least most of it). But it's how Falco and Corleone get from beginning to end that makes this journey a riveting and twisting ride." (BookReporter.com )

About the Author

Ed Falco is the author of three novels, four story collections, and numerous plays, poems, essays, and critical reviews. Among his many awards and honors are an NEA fiction fellowship, and the Southern Review's Robert Penn Warren Prize. He is a professor of English at Virginia Tech, where he directs the MFA Program in Creative Writing.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 448 pages
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing; 1 edition (May 8, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 9780446574624
• ISBN-13: 978-0446574624
• ASIN: 0446574627
• Product Dimensions: 6.5 x 1.6 x 9.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (95 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #117,314 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Ed Falco's novel, The Family Corleone, based on pages extracted from Mario Puzo's Godfather screenplays, is forthcoming from Grand Central Publishing on May 8, 2012. His most recent books include the story collections, Burning Man (SMU, 2011), and the novel Saint John of the Five Boroughs (Unbridled, 2009). Other books include Sabbath Night in the Church of the Piranha: New and Selected Stories (Unbridled, 2006), Wolf Point, a novel,(Unbridled, 2006) and In the Park of Culture, a collection of short fictions from The University of Notre Dame Press. His earlier works include the novel Winter in Florida, the hypertext novel, A Dream with Demons, the hypertext poetry collection, Sea Island, and a chapbook of prose poem, Concert in the Park of Culture, as well as two collections of short stories: Acid and Plato at Scratch Daniel's & Other Stories. Acid won the Richard Sullivan Prize from the University of Notre Dame, and was a finalist for The Patterson Prize. He has won a number of other prizes and awards for his writing, including an NEA Fellowship in fiction, a Virginia Commission for the Arts Fellowship in playwriting, the Emily Clark Balch Prize for Short Fiction from The Virginia Quarterly Review, The Robert Penn Warren Prize in Poetry from The Southern Review, The Mishima Prize for Innovative Fiction from The Saint Andrews Review, a Dakin Fellowship from the Sewanee Writers' Conference, two Individual Artist's Fellowships from the Virginia Commission for the Arts, and The Governor's Award for the Screenplay from The Virginia Festival of American Film. His stories have been published widely in journals, including The Atlantic Monthly, Playboy, and TriQuarterly, and collected in The Best American Short Stories, The Pushcart Prize, and several anthologies, including, Blue Cathedral: Short Fiction for the New Millennium. An early innovator in the field of digital writing, Falco's online work includes Self-Portrait as Child w/Father (Iowa Review Web), Circa 1967-1968 (Eastgate Reading Room), "Charmin' Cleary" (Eastgate Reading Room), and "Chemical Landscapes Digital Tales (with photographer Mary Pinto, in Volume I of The Electronic Literature Collection).

Falco lives in Blacksburg, Virginia, where he is the director of Virginia Tech's MFA program, and he edits The New River, an online journal of digital writing.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 27 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars A Prequel Without Equal June 24, 2012

By M. Larose

Format:Hardcover

With The Family Corleone Ed Falco becomes the third author to contribute to the Godfather series. He undoubtedly benefited from having a screenplay to work from by Mario Puzo, the man who started it all. It's a prequel that could serve as an excellent starting point for readers new to this crime saga. Specifically it details the formative events of the Corleone family business from Fall 1933 through the summer of 1935. According to Francis Ford Coppola, this is part of a time period that Puzo referred to as "the happy years when they killed everyone and no one killed them". And indeed the body count is quite high!

Patriarch Vito Corleone, his son Santino, and bodyguard Luca Brasi emerge as the most compelling subjects here. Fans of the film trilogy should be delighted with this novel as it deftly peels back the years and sheds light on the forces and circumstances that served to mold these pivotal characters. Falco hews closely to the formula and the general design of the Godfather world created by his predecessors. He even manages to faithfully mimic Puzo's writing style without slavishly relying on the source material. Care seems to have been taken to avoid episodic conflict with the cinematic and literary Godfather installments of the past. The glossary of Italian exclamations, curse words, and phrases in a nice bonus!

The Family Corleone "sticks to the script", brimming with names that are instantly recognizable to the Godfather faithful. Family, of course, is a loaded word in the vernacular of this nefarious realm; home and personal life regularly intersect with the mafia business that constitutes their occupation. As the story nears its conclusion, Vito finally designates himself as Godfather only after he has consolidated his power in the organized crime underworld of Depression-era New York. The legacy of violence and corruption are the fruit of this multi-generational tragedy of lost souls. Falco has created a worthy addition to this enduring and highly entertaining franchise.

32 of 38 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Do you remember Corleone, the Sicilian mafia family ... May 9, 2012

By A&D

Format:Hardcover

"I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse."
Don Corleone

Do you still remember Puzo's great family saga of the Sicilian mafia family Corleone? This is book is about them. Mario Puzo had written a screenplay that was not included in the original family saga and now this screenplay has been turned to a new novel. It traces back Vito Corleone's earlier phases and his rise to become a powerful Don in New York in 1920s - 1930s.

Background of the saga:
Remember how the saga started: how Vito arrived to New York and was poor at first, married Carmela and had 4 children. Vito tried to be honest, help his neighbors while trying to keep his three sons - Michael, Fredo and Sonny - and his daughter Connie - out of trouble. In 1920 Vito Corleone assassinated Little Italy's Don, Fanucci, and took over his crime territory and became Don Corleone. He took over the selling of bootlegged liquor. 1920s was the time of the Great Depression and the illegal alcohol business was booming because of the Prohibition.
Tom Hagen is an important part of the Corleone family. In his early years (in Puzo's book), Sonny Corleone finds him on the street after he has fled from his alcoholic and abusive father, and takes him in to live with the Corleone family. Vito Corleone becomes a surrogate father to Hagen, but does not officially adopt him out of respect for the boy's father.Later on, Tom becomes the family's consigliere (legal advisor).

This book:
As mentioned earlier, this book tells the story of young Vito Corleone in New York, when he is not yet Don. The author of this book, Falco, concentrates on the early life and the players affecting Vito's rise and his competitors and future/current enemies. He tells about young Sonny, who likes the wild life, the possibilities of becoming a member of the crime family business,his illegal activities in his own gang and his love life, and Tom Hagen, the future consigliere of Corleone family, and how he grows up and sees his possibilities as a member of the family.

This book is worth reading if you are a fan of the original Corleone saga because it gives some additional details of the family's growth during the Great Depression. Even if it is not written by Puzo, the characters and the storyline are written by him and based on his original script.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars took a chance June 8, 2012

By mariec

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

took a chance when purchasing a "prequel". Found it hard to put down, all the old familiar characters, and personality traits. If you like Sonny, you'll love this book. Having read the original back in 1969 it was like a flash back to the world of the Corleone family. Plus, being Italian I loved the usage of all the Italian phases that I haven't heard since living in Brooklyn. What can I say, it's in my genes!