The Family - Softcover

Puzo, Mario

Softcover

ISBN 10: 009953326X ISBN 13: 9780099533269

Publisher: Arrow, 2009

Synopsis

'We are a family,' Alexander told his children.
'And the loyalty of the family must come before everything and everyone else. We must learn from each other, protect each other, and be bound first and foremost to each other. For if we honour that commitment, we will never be vanquished - but if we falter in that loyalty, we will all be condemned'

In a tale of brutality and betrayal that crowns Mario Puzo's remarkable career, he brings us the story of the greatest crime family in Italian history - the Borgias.

About this title

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:

"Keeps readers turning pages all the way to an explosive showdown" (Daily Mail)

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

"Hugely effective fiction...[Puzo] keeps his pact with readers to unfailingly deliver the goods" (Literary Review)

"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)

"Puzo’s genius was to create a world so thick with personality and behaviour . . . that reading his books becomes a seriously guilty pleasure" (New York Post)

About this edition

• Publisher: Arrow
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 009953326X
• ISBN 13: 9780099533269
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 432