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MARIO PUZO

AN AMERICAN WRITER'S QUEST

Puzo’s fans will appreciate this warm portrait.

An exploration of the life and work of Mario Puzo (1920-1999).

In 1969, 14 years after his first novel appeared—and quietly disappeared—Puzo catapulted to fame with the publication of The Godfather. Drawing on Puzo’s autobiographical nonfiction, essays, published interviews, and memoirs by his friends and fellow writers, Moore (For Paris—With Love & Squalor, 2017) fashions an admiring portrait of the self-described “working-class novelist” whose spectacular success ended years of professional disappointment. Puzo grew up poor, amid “the grimy odors, the sooty filth, and the oily stenches” of Manhattan. Summers in New Hampshire, courtesy of the Fresh Air Fund, and sports and arts programs at the Hudson Guild Settlement House nourished his spirit. Sports, cards, and voracious reading became his choice activities. His future, though, seemed bleak to him, and he described the period between 18 and 21 as unremittingly miserable. In 1941, he was “delighted,” he admitted, to join the Army. When the war was over, he stayed on in the military in Germany and married a German woman. Postwar Europe, Moore observes, “was rife with intrigue, dangerous in ways that an ambitious writer would appreciate for sheer narrative intensity.” That atmosphere found its way into Puzo’s first novel, The Dark Arena, garnering critical praise but “general indifference” from readers. Moore chronicles Puzo’s money problems (with a wife and five children to support), affinity for gambling, and work frustrations. In 1962, he resigned from a government job to become a full-time staff writer at the Magazine Management Company, where he would turn out 30,000-40,000 words per month under various pen names before going home to write his own novels. Hard as he worked, though, he was always in debt—until he took an editor’s advice to write about “that Mafia stuff” that had appeared in some of his stories. It was advice well-taken: Readers made The Godfathera bestseller for 67 weeks, and it has lived on as a movie and sequels.

Puzo’s fans will appreciate this warm portrait.

Pub Date: March 19, 2019

ISBN: 978-1-942762-63-8

Page Count: 256

Publisher: Heliotrope Books

Review Posted Online: Dec. 16, 2018

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2019

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THE ELEMENTS OF STYLE

50TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION

Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...

Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.

Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").

Pub Date: May 15, 1972

ISBN: 0205632645

Page Count: 105

Publisher: Macmillan

Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972

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NUTCRACKER

This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)

Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996

ISBN: 0-15-100227-4

Page Count: 136

Publisher: Harcourt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996

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