Puzo's epic tale not only made truckloads of money but it also -- particularly the film adaptation -- garnered critical plaudits; it is routinely listed among the all-time top 10 American movies. An ur-American narrative whose appeal crossed all boundaries, Puzo's saga of a Mafia family's inter-generational struggle is probably, pace Huck Finn, the most familiar story in American culture, and Don Vito Corleone surely keeps company with Huck and Jay Gatsby as one of the most indelible icons of American fiction. The first real "blockbuster" book, Puzo's lurid peek at everyday life in gangland eventually sold tens of millions of copies worldwide and, many argue, changed the dynamics of the publishing business.

That change, with its emphasis on glitzy big-ticket books (Jackie Collins claims Puzo as one of her literary mentors), was not quite the splash Puzo had hoped to make as an author. Although he often admitted he'd written "The Godfather" only for the money, his first two novels -- "The Dark Arena" and "The Fortunate Pilgrim" -- were earnest literary efforts and, as such, hadn't earned him much of a living. After he became a fixture on bestseller lists, he would recall those earlier outings with the kind of nostalgia that suggested he'd crossed over from a literary realm and could never return.

Along with other postwar, second-generation immigrants like Bernard Malamud and Philip Roth, Puzo began his writing career with complex aspirations -- to tell an autobiographical tale that explored the difficulties and allure of cultural assimilation in America. Born in Manhattan's Hell's Kitchen, the child of Neopolitan Italians, Puzo drew on his hardscrabble upbringing -- his father deserted him and his six siblings when he was 12 -- for his second novel, "The Fortunate Pilgrim." His fictionalized version of his mother, Lucia Santa, is a stern and canny matriarch who negotiates her bicultural world with peasant wisdom and a streetwise eye. In the preface to a recent edition of the novel, Puzo claimed that his mother was the inspiration for Don Corleone. "Whenever the Godfather opened his mouth, in my own mind I heard the voice of my mother," he said.

Even though the critics appreciated these early books, Puzo found himself broke and blocked as a writer at the age of 45. Figuring he could raise some cash writing a book that collected the many stories he'd heard about organized crime, he dashed off "The Godfather." "I wished like hell I'd written it better," he would later say. "I wrote below my gifts in that book." But the desire to make a quick buck on Mafia sensationalism turned out to be a true devil's bargain. Read all over the world, the book is regarded as his single achievement, and his regret -- how many times must he have rewritten in his mind what he had believed were disposable sentences -- must have been keen.

No doubt the millions of dollars he earned soothed his conscience somewhat, but Puzo's sense of having betrayed his abilities continued to be played out in his writing career. He became a compulsive gambler, blowing much of what he made in Vegas. This set up a cycle that required him to write another commercial blockbuster -- more crime, more garish sex -- just to keep pace with his losses at the craps tables. The post-"Godfather" novels -- "Fools Die," "The Sicilian," "The Fourth K" and "The Last Don" -- rehash, with wildly varying degrees of skill, the bloody operatics that made him famous. In "The Sicilian" he does it with a deliciously exacting eye for the island's landscape and history; in "The Last Don," he's on automatic pilot, spooling out television-style clichés.

Still, by relying on the gangster story, surely the most worn-out plot in 20th century American books and movies, Puzo did manage to write the master narrative for the genre. The "Godfather" saga -- the novel and the first two films (sorry, I just refuse to concede the existence of "Godfather III") -- is the benchmark telling of the American myth of ruthless acquisition. Don Corleone is a fantasy figure for have-nots (not for nothing did Snoop Dogg title one of his albums "The Doggfather") as well as haves. The Don's deep sense of serrated grievance makes him an American everyman: "[Don Corleone] had long ago learned that society imposes insults that must be borne, comforted by the knowledge that in this world there comes a time when the most humble of men, if he keeps his eyes open, can take his revenge upon the most powerful."

In Corleone's dictatorial yet strangely soothing exercise of absolute power, we find the benevolent monarch who will make the trains run on time, protect us and, best of all, set straight our enemies. Guys in corner offices and guys on corners both trill with delight at the Mafia boss's ever cagey regard for the world around him. His steely paranoia -- "Keep your friends close, but keep your enemies closer" -- makes him the quintessential American realist hero. But Corleone is also a gushy sentimentalist, a papa who weeps for his boys (when he's not giving them a good smack). In this way, the Don serves as the ultimate patriarch, the strong, loving father you wished you had. Perhaps this explains his story's global appeal. That, and the cool way people get blown away.

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