Many of us have been vexed trying to figure out how long Michael’s Sicilian exile lasted. The movies are no help because of sloppy writing and inconsistencies between GF and II. For example, in II, while Michael and Kay are dancing at Anthony’s party (late 1958), Kay reminds Michael that he’d told her (in GF) that the “Corleone Family will be completely legitimate in five years. That was seven years ago.” In that scene in GF, Michael told Kay he’d been back “for a year.” Doing the arithmetic for GF and II, it’d mean Michael returned to the US in 1950. Some people on the boards take it as gospel.
I’ve gone to the novel to construct a credible timeline. The novel has sloppy writing and timeline inconsistencies, but it’s consistent with a view that Michael’s exile lasted less than two years. I’ve used, relevant quotes, and the page numbers from the first edition of the paperback, in case you scholars want to check on it:
8/45: Connie and Carlo marry on the last Saturday of the month (p.14).
12/23(?)/45: Vito shot; Tom kidnapped by Sollozzo while doing “some Christmas shopping for his wife and children” (75-6).
12/24/45: “The day after the shooting of Don Corleone was a busy one for the Family” (111). Michael dines with Kay that night, goes to hospital, is slugged by McCluskey (120-27).
12/25/45: At the Mall the next day, Michael says he’ll kill Sol and Mac, tells Sonny to set up the meeting with Sol “two days from now” (132).
12/27/45: Michael kills Sol and Mac, leaves for Sicily (152-3).
12/28/45: The next day, the Five Families send an emissary to Corleones to give up the killer. When Sonny refuses, “the Five Families War of 1946 [sic] had begun” (153).
1/46: “After five months of marriage,” Carlo beats up Connie for the first time (238). Sonny beats Carlo in the street. The beating is witnessed by “a small-time bettor on the payroll of the Tattaglia Family” (247).
1/46: NYC detectives quiz Kay in New Hampshire “three weeks after the shooting” (231).
2/46: Sonny is concerned about Vito’s safety in the hospital. “By the middle of February, when the Don could be moved,” he goes home (250). Sonny goes to all-out war against the other families. “Over the next few months, it became obvious…that the Corleone Family had outmatched itself” (253).
7/46: “It was nearly seven months of leisurely rustic living before Michael felt real boredom” (329). He goes for a long walk with Calo and Fabrizzio, sees Apollonia, gets hit by the thunderbolt (333).
8/46: Michael’s courtship of Apollonia “went on for two weeks…the wedding was the usual peasant one” (342-3).
9/46: Sonny is assassinated: Bonasera, after “more than a year since he put himself in the Don’s debt” (at Connie’s wedding), gets a call from Hagen telling him to be at his funeral parlor in an hour. There he receives Sonny’s corpse (256-9).
9/46: Don Tommasino tells Michael “news that grieved him to tell: Sonny Corleone had been killed” (350). DT is worried about Michael’s safety: “Your wedding brought you into sight.” He arranges for Michael to be moved the next day. Apollonia is killed by a bomb in the car that would take them to the new location. Fabrizzio disappears (351-3).
9/46: After a week’s unconsciousness, Michael awakes. DT tells him “I’ve sent messages to your father, and he’s sent back instructions. It won’t be long now, you’ll be back in America” (353).
9 – 12/46: “But it was to be another month before Michael recovered from his injuries, and another two months after that before all the necessary papers and arrangements were ready. Then he was flown from Palermo to Rome and from Rome to New York” (354).
12/46: Michael returns to America.
Puzo sloppily inserted two timeline anomalies:
1/48: After “nearly two years of living like a spinster,” Kay visits NYC to shop and to look for a better job. She had called Mama Corleone every week for six months after Michael disappeared, then stopped (356). On an impulse, she calls Mama, who tells her Michael has been back for six months (357). That would put his return at 7/47.
9 – 10/46: Following Sonny’s assassination, Vito meets with the heads of the other families, bartering protection for drug trafficking for Michael’s safe return (276-94). “But it was to be nearly another year before Don Corleone could arrange for his son Michael to be smuggled back into the United States” (300). That puts his return at 9/47.
I prefer the first timeline because it has the most consistency. But, all three timelines have Michael gone for less than two years. That’s credible. The Families could not have sustained a long, drawn-out war without either being bled to death or bankrupted. Michael could not have survived years in Sicily with a price on his head. And Sonny’s recklessness would have gotten him killed sooner rather than later.
