Prize Puzo ‘Godfather’ Author Writes Again With Authentic Tale Of Mob Intrigue
“The Last Don” By Mario Puzo (Random House, 482 pages, $25.95)
OK, OK Mario Puzo is a formulaic writer. Readers of “The Last Don” will note that it reads and tracks a lot like his previous works, most notably “The Godfather,” the quasi-authoritative romanticized text of the Mafia in America.
But formulaic or not, Puzo can still make 482 pages zip by. And that’s no easy task even when working within the milieu he knows so well.
Perhaps the ultimate question about “The Last Don” will come when CBS turns it into a six-hour mini-series. Will the phrases “communion and confirmation,” “wet your beak” and “they can dance to the bottom of the ocean together” be as famous as “an offer he couldn’t refuse” or “he sleeps wit da fishes”? That will probably depend on the director - Francis Ford Coppola isn’t directing the mini-series and Robert DeNiro probably isn’t acting in any either, although there are several roles he could adequately fill.
But enough about the movies - this is still the book page.
“The Last Don” is swell summer reading. It is full of twists, interwoven plot lines, unpredictabilities and undoubted truisms that you know Puzo plucked over some long veal dinner in New York’s Little Italy with made men who trusted him.
Forget, at least for a while, the Corleone family. “The Last Don” is the tale of the ruling Clericuzio family, who wiped out the Santadio family in a coup de omerta that is explained near book’s end. Don Domenico Clericuzio is trying to orchestrate the Italian mob’s total transformation into legitimate businessmen, controlling legal gambling and the motion picture industry, instead of drugs, prostitution and da unions - pardon the ethnocentricity.
Puzo always imbues his tales with great authenticity. When he explains how Mafia loan sharks drain the checking account of a minnow (as in late payer), you have no doubt it actually happens this way. Say you owe the mob $5,000 and you write da guys a check for that much with only $4,000 in your account. The all-knowing organization will get a bank mole to find out the account balance. Then the mob will deposit $1,000 to the account, then redeposit the check to clean out your $4,000. Of course, there’s the little issue of the $1,000 shortage and the interest you’ll pay on that will be brought up the next time the loan officer visits, heh, heh.
“The Last Don” provides insights into the inner workings of the Hollywood movie machine, the Las Vegas money machine and the underworld’s influence machine. It is appalling to think the average movie requires all the wheeling and dealing Puzo intimates it does. But after reading “The Last Don,” you’ll definitely be wondering about, say, the intimate details of Sharon Stone’s next movie.
Of course, love does bloom amidst the corpses and the love muffin here is the improbably devoutly named Croccifixio (Cross) De Lena. Cross, a scion of the Clericuzios, is the Mafia’s key operative at Vegas’ Xanadu resort and casino, where the motto is “fun, fun, fun until you don’t pay your gambling chits.” Cross has the hots for Athena Aquitane, star of the mega-film “Messalina.”
Cross, however, has this cousin named Dante who is nicknamed “The Little Hammer.” Guess what he does?
Throw in the artfully written subplots about crooked governors-turned-senators, avenged injustices, Hollywood’s shrouded sexual peccadilloes and Puzo has another hit on his hands. Oh, have we kinda almost read this before? Kinda almost sure. But movie remakes are readily acceptable - should we not extend the same acceptability to well retold tales?
On a beach blanket, with a cool drink next to you, it’s an offer that would be hard to refuse.
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