Actually Rather Good

You guys need to chill out a bit. I'm a massive fan of The Godfather, both the book and the films and I am actually quite enjoying The Godfather Returns. Winegardner seems to have pretty much nailed the spirit of Puzo and is doing interesting things with the characters. I haven't finished it yet, but I shall do shortly. It just seems to me that the other posters here need to sit back, get a bit of perspective and stop planning to lynch Winegardner. It's taken guts to do what he's done and most of you sound like you would have criticised anyone who wrote a Godfather novel.

Thats your opinion, and you're certainly entitled to it. I think the book stinks!!

Welcome to the boards.

No, it's a piece of sh*t.

Welcome to the boards.

*cough* This book sucks. It sucks so bad that Winegardner should be arrested and charged with some weird, obsolete crime that no one has ever heard of. *cough*

I hope I wasn't too subtle.

Welcome to the boards!

Welcome to the BB Jimmy The Hat This is a great place to meet new friends. I've enjoyed every second. I'm glad you like the book but, like most of us I thought it stunk to high Heaven. I'm looking forward to reading your thoughts.

I can understand why it could be criticised (for example, I wasn't that impressed with Clemenza's death, it wasn't at all as I imagined it would be, and Fredo being gay is just bizarre), but I think the personal attacks on Winegardner are a bit harsh. I imagine he was bricking it when it came out - sure, it can't touch the original book, but it ain't that bad! Without wishing to be cliche, it's business. Not personal.

On this, Jimmy The Hat, I bow to your logic. It isn't fair to attack Winegardner personally. He did a job that Random House commissioned him to do, and if he made a complete balls-up of it then it's Random House to be blamed for not only publishing it, but not insisting on rewrites.

However debatable his writing ability is, Winegardner had a wealth of knowledge to draw from; the characters of Hyman Roth and Johnny Ola are barely mentioned the same with the brilliant Frank Pentangelo (although Clemenza and Tessio's deaths are documented - thank heavens for small mercies). Instead of ploughing the depths of Godfather lore, we get treated to a dull protagonist (Nick Geraci), a barely-recognizable Michael Corleone, a completely out-of-character Fredo and a long and boring subplot regarding Francesca Corleone and Billy Van Arsdale.

The publishers know their demographics. They're aware that there will always be an interest in the franchise and they know that the characters are well loved and established. Someone at Random House should have noticed that the characters were shallow and the storyline incomprehensible and flatly nonexistent. Someone needed to pull Winegardner to one side and say "Hold on, what the hell are you writing here?" Do they employ proofreaders? Random House assume that just because an author has read 100 books on the Mafia and organised crime for research, he's qualified to write about the Corleone family.

After reading the book I tried to imagine what Mr Puzo would have made of the book. My guess is that he would have advised Winegardner to keep the Geraci character but take the story and the character in a whole new direction. Geraci 's hype on the jacket promised a Sicilian with cunning, but this wasn't delivered. Maybe Mario could have given him pointers.

IMHO, if Winegardner could have or would have sought the input of FFC, he might have written a better book. Maybe he did consult Mr Coppola, I don't know. All I know is that if The Godfather's Revenge is as badly constructed as The Godfather Returns/The Lost Years, there'll be more of the same of this for that particular book.

Well. I finished it last night and I have to say that I remain quite pleased with it. I don't agree with some aspects of it - particularly Michael, he just sounds far too removed from the character that has been established by Puzo's book and the films. Similarly, the alterations to Fredo are bizarre but more believable than Michael. I found the Francesca Corleone subplot very interesting and a character that could be expanded upon later. I will definitely read the next novel - I tend to think of these new storylines almost as a parallel universe. Not quite what I thought would happen...but almost.

SPOILER WARNING!!!!!
I didn't find as much if a problem with Winegardner's writing as I did with the UNDOING of "facts" that we've known from the book and movies.
Michael went to Dartmouth.... Kay had an abortion...Fredo struck a deal with Rith because he was more ambitious than smart, not because he was manipulated. These are things we KNOW....I found Winegardner's boldness in rewriting Puzo (and Coppola) unpalatable...It was his job to fill in the blanks, not change the characters. If Michael had Dr Jules killed for performing an abortion on Kay, and that abortion never happened, it not only is a statement on Michael's brutality, but his ability to find out the truth as well. The same goes for Michael's killing Fredo, rather than preventing him from being manipulated by a more cunning rival. That changes what know about Michael from before. I don't know about all of you, but I was interested in seeing an evolution of characters, not a rewriting of them....

Well, the book is what it is, y'know...Marlon, I think you've got something very right in that post. I read this over a year ago; I'm going to have to do it again, and pay a little more attention to details here and there. I wasn't necessarily disappointed with Winegardner's characterizations, but I remember questioning some of his decisions. And we always knew Fredo was "squirrely," to use a popular euphemism here in Texas.

But I remember enjoying the book while reading it; I think a lot of us are "hung up" on the FILMS, and haven't read Puzo's original NOVEL in way too long! I reread that one just prior to this one, and they seemed to dovetail perfectly, for me, at the time.

To each his own, huh? But for the record, the book is NOT terrible. I found it a pretty good read, at the time...I'll look for glaring ommissions/faulty logic/changed details next time, and I'll report here. Thanks for the post!

If you forget everything you know about the Corleone family then it's not that bad, but like marlon says, Winegardner tried to change things too much about the characters

I do remember reading it that it seemed like Micheal was "nicer" than he normally was. Or something like that. When they had him and Kay "making out" in an empty movie theater, It felt a little strange. But I still liked it!