Something of a mini-industry in itself, The Godfather spawned an entire generation of Mafia stories, which tempered the time- honoured violence of earlier treatments such as Eliot Ness's The Untouchables with insight into the supposedly more attractive traits of mobsters.Movies as different as Miller's Crossing, Goodfellas, and Prizzi's Honor all have discernible roots in the original phenomenon of Mario Puzo's novel. His friends composed a wide-ranging circle of known and not-known and he was famously loyal to long-time pals, who included the novelist Joeseph Heller and the Los Angeles attorney Bert Fields.He was, as his friend Fields noted, quintessentially American, for Puzo represents a rags-to-riches story that is pure Americana in its resonance. His great success went more to his stomach than to his head, and latterly he was commonly described as looking like an out-of-shape middleweight boxer. He wrote several other novels, including one finished just before his death which will be published next year.A keen bon viveur with a great love of Italian food, Puzo was also an enthusiastic gambler and a well-known figure at the higher-rolling tables in Las Vegas. Puzo himself worked on all three Godfather films, as well as on many other movies, including two of the Superman films. And even this so-called humanisation perpetuated the traditional view of Italian-Americans as steeped in crime - to the fury of many of Italian descent trying to emerge from the confines of such stereotypes.The extraordinary success of the film version of the book, on which Puzo collaborated with Francis Ford Coppola, only served to re-emphasise the associations of Mafia, family, and oaths of silence (the great tradition of Omerta) in the public mind, especially when this movie spawned two equally successful sequels.

Against the immigrant backdrop of home-made wine and Sicilian pastries we watch the Don's son and heir, Michael, attend an Ivy League college and become the modern, respectable face of traditional mobsterdom.Clearly the humanisation of the Corleone family struck a chord in an America that had lost touch with family life, though to romanticise this family would be to ignore the the sinister activities which are never very far beneath the surface of their more glamorous social world - lurking behind the perfumed excesses of a Las Vegas showgirl is the cloacal aroma of a commissioned garrotting. The family's fortunes also neatly reflect larger societal shifts, especially as America entered a post-war era of corporate and sanitised prosperity. It is a world more of money than taste, and in his evocation of the delights of the nouveaux riches Puzo is really only following the example of other "social" best-selling novelists such as Irving Wallace or Harold Robbins.Where he differs from these producers of pabulum is in his very real ability to draw highly distinctive characters, particularly those of the Corleone family - the patriarch Don Vito Corleone and all his sons are memorable. In The Godfather he sets what is essentially a family saga against a backdrop of new wealth and power in the the putatively glamorous environs of New York City, Las Vegas and Palm Springs.

Why should a family saga with a cast bearing foreign-sounding names, following an immigrant lifestyle and doing terrible things to each other become such a popular hit?Certainly much of the credit must go to Puzo's undeniable skill as a writer of narrative. It was published at a time when American attention was focused on the Vietnam War, racial conflict in American life, and the prospect of the first man stepping on to the Moon. Translated throughout Europe and in Asia, the book sold over eight million copies in paperback even before the film of the book was released in 1972.As with many massive bestsellers, the success of The Godfather defies rational or historical explanation. Out of this 10-page outline came the 450 pages of The Godfather, published in 1969.It was from the start a success, becoming No 1 in the United States besteller lists and staying on them for well over a year.