I think Turnbull said the novel was first published back in 1969. Why do you think it took off in the way it did? I know it was a huge success but what made the people go out and buy it in droves???
I was only very young then and British, so I missed all the whoo -haaaa.
What was the original attraction and obsession with the book?? Thanks to anyone who may know

FH

Ganster have always been a favorite sunject of Americans, and I would expect others in the world...Since the early thirtys and all those movies of the 40's and 50's... The Godfather was the film that brought us back to the subject.

Like so many things that circle around and subjects or movies get remaded. I remember everyone talking about the horses head in the bed. Please remember that other then Brando, most people were not well known back then when the Godfather was first made...

I remember when Casino first came out and the parts where Nicky puts the guys head in the vice and pops his eye out and then agian when Nicky and his brother are beat to death had people talking aboutit and also how graffic it was...

It had the two main ingredients that most best sellers of it's time had--sex and violence. Other best sellers back then followed the same formula- VALLEY OF THE DOLLS, by Jacqueline Susanne, and anything by Harold Robbins, to name just two. But I'll be damned if I know why it was such a HUGE seller. As I've said before, it certainly wasn't great literature. Other best selling writers of the time, such as Herman Wouk and Philip Roth, wrote much better books IMO, but never approached the sales of GF. Go figure.

The novel got rave reviews in some publications, mainly because of the fly-on-the-wall view of the Mafia, a subject that has always fascinated people. Puzo provided a level of detail that hadn't been offered in other crime novels, and people eagerly absorbed it.
Now, this is an opinion: Americans have always been simultaneously repelled by, and fascinated with, secret societies. The Freemasons served the purpose in the early years of the Republic. Then we had the Communist Party USA. The Kennedy assassination totally absorbed the conspiracy theorists for years. The Godfather came along in 1969, just as the Kennedy brouhaha was winding down--its "insider" view of the Honored Society was just what Americans wanted to read about.
One other point: Paramount provided considerable hype for the novel. Paramount gave Puzo an advance on GF in 1967, before he'd written it. Although Paramount showed a considerable amount of diffidence when they finally decided to make the film, they were very excited about Puzo's project, and talked it up plenty before it was finished.