The Family - Softcover

Puzo, Mario

3.84

13,810 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0099464748 ISBN 13: 9780099464747

Publisher: Arrow, 2003

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What is a family? Mario Puzo first answered that question, unforgettably, in his landmark bestseller The Godfather; with the creation of the Corleones he forever redefined the concept of blood loyalty. Now, thirty years later, Puzo enriches us all with his ultimate vision of the subject, in a masterpiece that crowns his remarkable career: the story of the greatest crime family in Italian history - the Borgias. In The Family, this singular novelist transports his readers back to fifteenth-century Rome and reveals the extravagance and intrigue of the Vatican as surely as he once revealed the secrets of the Mafia. At the story's centre is Rodrigo Borgia, Pope Alexander VI, a man whose lustful appetites for power, luxury and women were matched only by his consuming love of family. Surrounding him are his extraordinary children: the simple, unloved Jofre; the irascible, heartless Juan; the beautiful, strong-willed Lucrezia; and the passionate warrior Cesare, Machiavellli's friend and inspiration. Their intermingled stories constitute a symphony of human emotion and behaviour, from pride to romance to jealousy to betrayal and murderous rage. And their time, place, and characters are recaptured in all their earthy, human grandeur, with the unerring insight and compassion that were Mario Puzo's great gifts.

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Review:

The Family is the belated fruit of Mario Puzo's life-long obsession with the Borgias, whom the creator of Don Corleone saw as just another family whose family business happened to involve killing people. He never got round to writing the book until his last months, when he was old and tired and made some unfortunate artistic decisions. This is the sort of old-fashioned historical novel in which the likes of Machiavelli, Da Vinci and Savonarola make momentary walks-on and in which people regularly spend half a page explaining international politics to each other--nonetheless, much of it has an intensity that compels in spite of the stiltedness of much of the dialogue. Puzo and his editor feel that the interesting story is how Rodrigo Borgia, Pope Alexander, created his son Cesare as the dark instrument of his will, and how Lucrezia, the emotional heart of the family, became a woman many remember as saintly in spite of participating fully, even incestuously, in her family's intrigues. The Borgias were not so different from their various rivals--just, for a while, more successful. --Roz Kaveney

Review:

"Head-long entertainment, bubbling over with corruption, betrayal, assassinations, Richter-scale romance, and, of course, family values" (Time)

"Puzo is a master storyteller with an uncanny facility for details that force the reader to keep the pages turning. Call it a literary meat-hook" (USA Today)

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