Janet's Book Nook

We all know about the famous set of books written by Mario Puzo that chronicles the life of Vito Corleone and his family as one of the head mob bosses. What I didn’t know is that those original books actually contain holes in the time line that leave the characters with lost years in their lives that the readers don’t have answers for. A few months ago I decided to buy the Godfather books through a closeout site. What I didn’t realize until I started to read a few weeks ago is that the books I ordered were not the original books. I did some research after getting these books and realizing I hadn’t gotten The Godfather I, II and III. Well silly me I just assumed there actually was a Godfather I, II and III. Come to find out there isn’t.

The Godfather original was published in 1969 by Mario Puzo and made in to a movie in 1974. The movie was such a great success that it was decided that a sequel was needed. Mario Puzo and Francis Ford Coppola then co-wrote the two sequels to The Godfather but neither were written as a book. The were written straight as scripts for the movies. In 1984 Puzo finally put to words the "sequel" to The Godfather as a book and titled it The Sicilian. While we all know the story as it goes in the two movies that followed the original The Sicilian is the actual sequel to the book.

Finally in 2004 there were two more books written on the subject. These two books were written by Mark Winegardner and are titled The Godfather The Lost Years and The Godfather’s Revenge.  Winegardner provides us with a time line in the final book that explains where the movies and books fall in detailing the life of the Corleone family. Here is what I got from that:

The book The Godfather written by Mario Puzo and the movie The Godfather both cover the time period 1945 – 1955. The Godfather Returns (I have also seen it titled The Godfather: The Lost Years) covers the time period 1955-1958 an also the time period 1959-1962. This book also has flashbacks to Michael’s early life from 1920 – 1945. The Godfather II movie covers the time period from 1958-1959 and the early life of Vito from 1910 – 1939 as flashbacks and The Godfather III movie is set from 1979-1980. Finally The Godfather’s Revenge book is set in 1963-1964. I really found this all very confusing. I guess the issue is that the two later movies were not based on books but were written straight to script. The books I received were the ones written by Winegardner and it would appear I received very early or very late copies as they don’t look the same as the books appear on his website. The photos on the cover are mysterious but feature closeups of people. The covers as they appear on his website are much more reminiscent of the puppet master theme seen with the movies. With red and black contrasts. It also seems that at some point the book I have that is titled The Godfather: The Lost Years was renamed to The Godfather Returns. Very strange but I imagine that is why I got them so cheap.

Now my problem is that I don’t have a copy of the original The Godfather.  It is all very confusing because they are written by different people and cover different time periods. I am hoping to get the original book so I can start there and work through the books and hopefully get a full picture of what this story is all about.