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Stories That Change Us
A lively discussion between four friends and authors as they breakdown the most popular fiction from the last century. Join us as we identify the key aspects of storytelling, character development, and social analysis that have caused these stories to resonate through the decades and, in doing so, help novice and seasoned writers craft bestselling fiction of their own.
Stories That Change Us
Episode 10: The Godfather by Mario Puzo
Provocative, gory, and oddly breathtaking are just a few ways to describe Mario Puzo's critically acclaimed crime novel, The Godfather. Intimate in his portrayal of family love, horrifying in the graphic description of violence and urban warfare... let's unpack the masterful way Puzo builds a world wrought with love that binds, loyalty that cripples, and conflict that kills to tell the story of a New York mafia family.
Moderated By: Laurel Thomas
Question: what is a story that has changed your life?
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This is Stories That Change Us where we analyze best selling fiction so that we can write best selling fiction. And tonight we are going to talk about The Godfather. And just a little fun facts on The Godfather. IT became one of the most successful fiction books ever, selling 21 million copies worldwide, spawning three critically and financially successful motion pictures and placing its characters into the contemporary American cultural mythology. Mario Puzo had no personal knowledge of organized crime although through research and family connections, he gathered the details that he needed for this chronicle of the fictional mafia family, the Corleone's. And just a little fun fact real quickly this novel chart the rise and fall of the mafia. Although that name was never used because a MA family, don created the first Italian American Anti Defamation League and would not permit him to use the title mafia. Interesting. Yeah, so my name is Laurel Thomas.
Micah Leydorf:I'm Micah Leidorf.
Melissa Grace:I'm Melissa Grace.
Kat Lewis:And I'm Kat Lewis.
Laurel Thomas:What we love to do in Stories That Change Us is to talk about the aspects of the novel. that made it successful. Many people read the novel. It wasn't just the movies. The novel was definitely a bestseller. So, we're going to just kind of break down some of the craft elements and some of just the ways that when we read the story, what is it that really impacted us and why? So, we're just going to open it up to whoever on what was your favorite quote in The Godfather?
Micah Leydorf:So this is Micah and I would say, you know, one of the things that I think you is one of the reasons why The Godfather is kind of retained its perennial popularity is because it's one of those movies that people do quote right? The quotes are just like part of our cultural conversation. And so it's funny. I've heard, you know, the various ones like, Oh,"make him a deal he can't refuse" or, you know, all these different little mobster type phrases, but one that I did not understand until I read it this time. This is my first time to read it. I've seen the movies, but I'd never, I didn't even realize that it was based off of the bestselling novel. Was that"revenge is a dish best served cold". I was like, so that's what that means. So I never really quite got it until I heard that, but I'm like, What does that mean? And one thing I did read in a interview, or I think it was the prologue with Francis Ford Coppola, the director of the successful film franchise, um, was that he actually based the character of The Godfather not on a man, but on his mother
Melissa Grace:and his grandmother.
Micah Leydorf:Oh, his grandmother. His grandmother's a grandmother. His grandmother, and those phrases were straight from her. He's like, she actually said those things. He didn't come up with those. And we know from our life as writers, right. The best.
Melissa Grace:That's right.
Micah Leydorf:The best quotes often come from the people around us. So watch out if you're around us. Exactly. Right. Mm-hmm
Kat Lewis:Grandma was mercenary
Micah Leydorf:She was, she was ruthless. That's the word. But she's, you know, and again, like, just like The Godfather, she could be very kind, very loving. Or she could be ruthless.
Laurel Thomas:So it's interesting that, so it's taken from the period 1940s, 1950s when the mob families were not just beginning, but were quite entrenched already. And I'm assuming that where they began was prohibition, but of course the depression didn't hurt either. But by the time we were in that Never Neverland Michael Corleone goes to, he serves in Europe. So there's a lot of that background historically and there was a lot of corruption in the court system. And so when you read the opening of the novel, you read three different instances. Well, two out of three of them are because of an injustice in the court system. And, you know, Vito says, I'll take care of it. In fact, an interesting quote that, right off the beginning of the novel, Don Vito Corleone,"was a man to whom everyone came for help and were never disappointed". So the American dream, the question was historically that's what brought the immigrants over, but was it panning out for them? Mario Puzo's not making any indictments on anything. He's just telling a story, but it is interesting that you wonder if, if that was true during that time. Did the mob families actually give immigrants a place of protection?
Kat Lewis:That's interesting Laurel, because. This is my first interaction with The Godfather in any capacity; never seen the movies, never read the books. Some of the criticism around The Godfather is this book was released in the 1970s when there's this whole upheaval of everybody was kind of in deconstructionist mode as far as the system isn't working. You know, let's burn our bras in the streets. I mean people were just ready for massive, massive change. And I kind of think that's the appeal of this novel because it gives almost an alternative government system.
Melissa Grace:That's, that is what was so fascinating to me. And I don't know, this is Melissa. I don't know if this truly reflects from what I've read outside of the story. There were gangsters that told Mario Puzo that he had their life down cold. But this was what was fascinating to me was that he did present them as seeing themselves as just a legitimate alternative government; not like thugs, but very organized, very much a chain of command. And I, my quote that I thought was so interesting, is early in the story and it's regarding one of the injustices that the mortician, his daughter is badly beaten and he had not in the past asked anything of The Godfather
Micah Leydorf:or associated with The Godfather,
Melissa Grace:with him because he wanted to just be an American. And, he comes to Don Corleone and says,"I asked you for justice. Don Corleone said, curtly, the court gave you justice. Bonicero shook his head, stubbornly. No, they gave the youth justice. They did not give me justice". Finally he persuaded The Godfather to give him justice because he on The Godfather's terms and said, okay, I submit myself to your system instead of the American system. He had so wanted to be under the American system and it didn't do him justice.
Laurel Thomas:It's interesting though, because the Don did not frame it that way. He framed it out of a sense of loyalty. So this section that to me was proof that this was more than a governmental structure is he goes to the previous counselor, named Genko, and he's on his deathbed, and the man says basically, um,"Godfather, Godfather, save me from death. My flesh is burning off my bones and I can feel worms eating away my brain. Godfather, cure me. You have the power. Dry the tears of my poor wife. In Corleone, we played together as children, and now will you let me die when I fear hell for my sins?" So it was way more than a governmental structure. It was more I mean, cult like. Yes, yes, definitely. And basically the, you know, Don says, I, you know, I can't do that. Resign yourself. And, but basically, um, he says,"but if you stay with me, maybe death will see you and maybe death will be frightened away". Because you're here.
Micah Leydorf:Well, you know, it's interesting that you bring this up, Laurel. Because, I mean, so, to our listeners, there's no, I mean, spoiler alert, like, once you're listening, you might find out some things you don't want to find out, so. So I just want to skip right to the ending, actually. When I was reading the prologue with Francis Ford Coppola, he was talking about a few things that Mario Puzo objected to in the screenwriting. And he objected to 1, Michael killing his brother He said, you know, he would never kill his brother. And then the other thing was he objected to Kay, Michael's wife aborting their son and then telling him that he did. She's he would, she would never do that. And I've seen the movie long ago. And Oh, it's interesting that those things, those are major plot points don't happen in the book, but I didn't know what happened. Instead. Right. And then reading along great reads, so much tension. those 650 pages just like flew by. Right. And then I got to the end of the book, which it ends with, instead of that scene of Kay throwing a big temper tantrum and leaving Michael and saying that she aborted their child because she couldn't stand for him to live in this world. Then instead, converting to Catholicism and kneeling down and taking the Eucharist and praying for Michael's soul? What a contrast, right? Like, it couldn't be more of a contrast of this being the climatic scene of the book.
Laurel Thomas:Well, that's what I meant. I mean, it's like a religion, right? The devotion, obviously, that they have for Don Corleone. So it's just interesting that it is so much more than a structure because I don't know that a structure could hold the human element, the universals of needing, needing a family, needing power.
Kat Lewis:Well, I was listening to several book reviewers sharing their thoughts about this novel. And one of the things that one of them said was that this is the first modern example of an anti hero story done well. We love the anti hero stories. We love Iron Man and Deadpool and all those people, right? Because it's very easy to forget. In between cutting off horse's heads and, you know, rape scenes like there's such a, there's such a humanity within the Dons, right? Within Don Corleone that you do kind of forget that he's the bad guy. Like you do kind of forget that I shouldn't be rooting for them to succeed or the police not to catch them or whatever it is. And that is what was eye opening to me was when I think. mafia, I think of them as the oppressors, but that's not the heart position that they can't, that they come from. It, it was, it was very intricate as far as like, it's this blend of religion and family and government. And it's this weird mesh
Micah Leydorf:Well, that's the world that Mario Puzo paints of the mafia. Is that the world of the mafia? This is a big question. So it's funny that you mentioned that Gone with the Wind came out at the same time as this novel, because again, like Margaret Mitchell, she presents a view of the South, which a lot of people would say like, Oh, that's not really the South. Um, but it was, this was very appealing in the same way. Like, Oh, here's this very appealing view of the mafia.
Laurel Thomas:I would just throw it out. That the most successful tyrants have always operated like this. Building family, building exclusivity, building the protection, building the, you know, you belong to us.
Micah Leydorf:Gangs. This is what gangs do.
Melissa Grace:Yeah, an identity.
Laurel Thomas:But actually every tyrant that has become a cultural force has had all of the elements that we see.
Kat Lewis:That's so interesting. I know we were talking about Hitler in a totally different context before dinner, but, um, People are always surprised to figure out how does one man brainwash an entire nation, right, to genocide, right? And to support genocide. And that's exactly what he did. He mobilizes this idea of exclusivity of and even like loyalty to the system and like the Don, Don is like, I am your protector.
Melissa Grace:Which is the key to this whole thing. I feel like, because he is so thoroughly deceived into thinking that he's a good guy, right? I feel like he does though in a really pragmatic way, think, okay, you can either put yourself under the authority of the United States government and take your risk there, or you can come to me and I will love you in the way that he perceives love, right? I will protect you. I will take care of you. He thinks he's an honorable man. I mean, it's almost like the depth of his deception and rebellion is that he's like, yeah, that system God has, maybe I don't really work in that, but I'm, I'm a good guy.
Laurel Thomas:Well, I think Hitler was totally convinced that he was right.
Micah Leydorf:So I think that there's a little bit of scary connection. I almost hesitate to bring it up, but you know, it's, it's some of these things that we're talking about is whenever the common themes is where you feel like there's an enemy, right? And you are powerless against that enemy without this other person, the strong man's help. And, and that's where we are today. That's why we have like politically, that's where we have this separation, you know, where you have, okay, people have lost faith in the system. That's where the Italians, that's what he was saying. Like that system is not going to be fair to you. And so I think in today people think, Oh, I can't trust anymore
Laurel Thomas:in story form. it makes for a successful story because it's so expansive. It's so cultural. It's taking us totally into a culture that may or may not apply to what we know today, but it is, it is a culture that is fascinating. It actually shocks us. You know, the fact that it, that it is so powerful also, I think, engages us. But the fact that it's rooted in history, I think, is so powerful. And when we write novels, whether we're writing historical fiction or not, to have a story strongly rooted in a culture, so that people can see the universals of that culture, It adds a dimension to the novel that takes it, I think, into an epic quality.
Kat Lewis:Well, and I think that, you know, as far as talk about creating a character who is not just within culture, he creates culture and his actions create culture. And I think that's one of probably the strongest things about any of the characters. I mean, Michael, Don,. It's like, this is a world of their making. And so, I mean, that's one of the things that I took away was specifically on and how to build villains. Because if I am, let's say I'm a U. S. attorney in this story, let's just create like an alternate storyline. I'm a U. S. attorney within this mafia world, right? A world that's spurring off of this literally one person, right? And so just to create characters that are so powerful, villain characters that are so powerful, they create culture that our protagonist then have to navigate in and through and it's like thick. It's not weak and brittle. It's like, no man, I can't imagine.
Melissa Grace:And he just was so expertly woven that he is just this horrible, horrible person. And at the very end, spoiler again, when he falls over dead, I'm a little touched by it because, because he was, because there was such humanity. I mean, the Mario Puzo just wrote him, you know, it was 1 of those things that being very specific makes you very universal the way he wrote him so specifically in the moment of his death. Um,
Laurel Thomas:Let's talk about visceral moments then, since we're going in this direction. Name a moment in the story that stood out with visceral relief and explain what storytelling techniques help us to be a successful scene. There are lots of visceral scenes.
Micah Leydorf:The whole thing. So many iconic things. I mean, the horse head, I mean, it's got to be like, you know, again, just in. In our, in our culture, it's just a burned into your brain. Yes, exactly. Like, who doesn't know that about having a horse head in your brain? Even if you are in your bed, even if you haven't even seen the movie or read the book, like what that actually meant.
Laurel Thomas:Well, and I don't know if it was, I can't remember if it was in the novel, but he is at his sister, Connie, her child's baptism. So. And while he's saying, I believe in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, all five of the crime mob leaders are being assassinated.
Micah Leydorf:That's in the movie. That's not in the book.
Melissa Grace:Well, but the timing is very close in the book. Like, I mean, yeah, that's a great way to make the movie. Right.
Micah Leydorf:That's I've heard that before that like, Catholicism is what Hollywood loves religion to look like because it's so dramatic. And so it's like, Oh, we're going to use this this pomp and circumstance and decorum and liturgy and all these things and yes. So this moment of this little innocent baby and, you know, pledging loyalty at the same time juxtaposed with that violence. So I think that the movie does a good job, you know, portraying the essence and the heart of the book. Although, like I say, with those, I felt like those two big departures were, um, pretty big.
Kat Lewis:I feel like this book feels like every moment's a visceral moment because every is so emotional. Like there is not a moment where the characters themselves are not deeply invested. It's almost like, the catch 22 of being in this family system, religion, cult, whatever you want to call whatever the mafia is, right. Whatever, you know, my modern language, a gang is. It's like you, there's no removing yourself from it. Right. You become so entrenched. And so even like small moments. And the justification for things, you know, how do you justify strangling somebody? How do you justify cutting off horses, a poor horse's head and then putting it in somebody's bed? I mean, you're like, where is logic and justice, but like you follow the story as the tension builds because every moment feels like a make or break moment.
Micah Leydorf:Exactly. Like, you read about like making coffee or opening up the windows or something, I'm just like, Oh, what is going to happen?
Kat Lewis:Oh my gosh, there's going to be a drive by. I know. I know. It's like every, there, there is tension. Mm. All the time. Yeah. All the time.
Melissa Grace:Well, I think what you're saying about, um, about not being able to get out. I feel like I thought that K was such a fascinating character because. Of how she, I mean, she allowed herself to be trapped because she fell in love with a version of Michael, but, um. I felt like that a really visceral moment was when she figures out what Michael's about at the very, kind of at the end of the book. Um, when, you know, after
Micah Leydorf:she weeps in the kitchen,
Melissa Grace:yes, yes, everybody can, but I, I loved how he wrote it. Where. And I'll just. I'd love to read it. Don Michael Clemenza said it was after, the cleansing that everybody was killed in revenge."Kay could see how Michael stood to receive their homage. He reminded her of statues in Rome, statues of those Roman emperors of antiquity who by divine right held the power of life and death over their fellow man. And then it goes on to describe like exactly how he was standing and. His body was carelessly, arrogantly at ease. They stood before him in that moment. Kay knew that everything Connie had accused Michael of was true. She went back into the kitchen and wept". I just love how personal he, again, just shrinking it down to make it impactful. She just knew her husband so well that she could tell by his body language, even what he was feeling. Where he was, who he was. And I just, I thought that was so interesting.
Kat Lewis:Yeah, I think, um, playing off of what you're saying and what you mentioned, like, uh, about how the movie did a huge deviance from the book where the book ends with is it Kay who
Melissa Grace:Kay Yes.
Kat Lewis:Falls, prostrate in this church and begins to pray for their souls. Versus in the movies, it's this admittance of an abortion to kind of throw this back in this man's face and I think about how K is such a great foreshadowing of the failure of the system, right? Because if she thought that this way of life, you know, produced sane, stable people; the fact that she saw this as a corruption and a pollution of Michael, right? The Michael that she knew and the fact that she's like, you know, the only thing that I have to go back to is, this established religious thing, right? That was really, that was like a visceral moment for me because everything about this structure does scream cult. It does scream religion, you know, talk about like this man who's sitting here and saying, I think you've got the power to scare off death. Like what? Like how?
Melissa Grace:How does somebody get there?
Kat Lewis:How does somebody get there? And for Kay to be right in the center of all of it, right? And to say, actually, I think I need, we need to just take this back to basics. Right. And I don't know, that was like, that was a really interesting moment for me of, you know, what does it take for somebody to come awake? Right. And to just admit that This is not what I thought it was and this is not going my way and for that religious thing Right that people have different relationships with religion and all the things; but I do think at the end of the day It was a very interesting portrayal of that was what she had to fall back on.
Laurel Thomas:So let's look at I mean the major craft element is a negative character arc. And it's not just Michael
Melissa Grace:does anybody have a positive character arc? I don't think anybody does
Kat Lewis:Not in Book one Yeah. Yeah. Maybe we get there later, but not in book one. I think the author does a really fantastic job of setting up a series and
Melissa Grace:he didn't mean to and I think that's interesting. He didn't mean to Oh, he meant for this to be, yeah. He meant one and done. He thought it was gonna be one and done
Kat Lewis:What's so interesting, let's talk about negative character arcs, though. You can't take everybody and then not give us some kind, you know, that's the American, I think that's the Western mentality in us. We want a smidge of a happy ending. We can't just be death, destruction, devastation.
Micah Leydorf:But I think it was a happy ending. I mean, that's why I was like, Oh, like it wasn't, you know, K leaves him and throws it all in his face. And then you have to have these other sequels. It was, She joins the church. She starts to go to mass every day with his mother and pray for him. Like she accepted. She joined, like they were going to live happily ever after, essentially.
Laurel Thomas:Or I mean, it seems like the whole book is about power. So who's going to get what done, right? And isn't that the force of character arc which power is going to prove most. transformative. And for Michael, you know, he does not start for his dad's business. Right. He doesn't start that way.
Kat Lewis:He's the prodigal son of the family.
Laurel Thomas:And I think the interesting thing is to see that pattern, to see that pattern of seduction, and of course we see it in Kay to a certain extent. Although Michael he does tell her some true stories at the wedding. And she's gradually putting things together. But anyway, I, I just think the whole issue of power. And so when she is joining the church, I'm like, she's like, Hey, there's got to be something bigger. It has to be right.
Melissa Grace:I felt like her joining the church and following his mother's example of, basically recreating the pattern of the Don and his wife, the Don and his wife. I didn't see it as any, any redemption in it at all. I just saw it as really sad because it's just perpetuating that pattern of, I'm going to stay with a man who is so horrible and vicious and basically stick my head in the sand.
Kat Lewis:Let's talk about though, how loyalty traps people, right? Because
Laurel Thomas:false loyalty.
Kat Lewis:Well, no, I think that there's a lot of, you know, there's, it gets a little dicey, but you know, there's deep love for these people, right? I mean, deep love. And they're raised culturally within Italian Sicilian culture and within this mafia culture. They're like, That, that blood is everything. And so I, I agree with you. I think it's interesting to see the foreshadowing of her falling in line of this recreation of this Don and his wife, but I don't think it's because that woman is trapped. I think that she's trapped with her love for him. Right.
Melissa Grace:If you're a believer, which I know you are, Melissa, you got to think of like we sometimes have this kind of savior mentality, right? Again, because in the West and we think that we can control things and we think that we can change things. And I think that people in other parts of the world don't have that quite that same idea because they realize the hopelessness of that. Like say you're a Russian peasant or something, or say you're, you know, like you recognize, I can't change the world. All I can do is, is my own heart. And so I feel like that's what I feel like she's doing. It's like, I can't change the world. This power structure. I can't change the mafia. I can't even change my own husband, but you know what I can do? I can pray for his soul. I can just do what I can do.
Laurel Thomas:It's so codependent.
Melissa Grace:I mean, to me, I mean, wouldn't you, wouldn't you love it if someday people are like, Oh no, I got this from Laurel's book. I mean, I just think that's, I mean, to me, that's exactly what. I would love as an author is for people to be like, for my characters to be so complex that they can be interpreted in.
Laurel Thomas:Yes.
Micah Leydorf:So one of our questions that we always ask is like, what is it that this author does so well? And I don't even know. It's like, is it the tension? Is it the character development? Is it the dialogue?
Kat Lewis:I, all of it, so many conversations happen at a table, right? Like in a cigar room, listen, you could cut it with a knife. I'm like, I have never been more involved in a pizzeria conversation in my life to me.
Melissa Grace:I, okay. I took this as such a huge, because I have a tendency toward flowery and toward, you know, all this. And I mean, he just said it and it was refreshing and it was okay. He just, it was just a fabulous story. There was head hopping and for people who don't know writer lingo that okay. Every scene is supposed to be in one. Perspective one point of view character. He was all over the place. I mean we were in this guy's head then we were in this guy's head and We were yes,
Micah Leydorf:and it was great
Melissa Grace:And also I don't know about you guys and I was very controversial right now probably but I felt like the whole Johnny Fontaine storyline was superfluous. Like an editor today would cut that whole story.
Kat Lewis:No, and honestly though,
Melissa Grace:but it all worked. It still was fabulous because story trumps everything.
Kat Lewis:Absolutely.
Laurel Thomas:And he was an entrance into a world that the mob wanted to get into. Which were the casinos.
Melissa Grace:I just don't think it was strong. I just didn't think it was.
Kat Lewis:That's a common opinion that the whole Johnny Carino. That's not his name.
Melissa Grace:Or Frank Sinatra if you just really like
Kat Lewis:that, that storyline could have totally been cut out and the story would have missed nothing, but I do think that it's important to glimpse. What the options other than drugs were because that's the whole so wait a second.
Micah Leydorf:You would lose the horse's head without Johnny Fontaine That was like, oh, you know
Melissa Grace:That was oh, they could have they could have found another person to put the horses
Laurel Thomas:He's a good view into the Don because the Don loved him. And he excused all kinds of things. He treated him like a son.
Micah Leydorf:So this is kind of interesting going back to your original idea about this being a structure, this being a government and and then thinking there, right? And we forget, I think, like how bloody Like war is right how bloody. So think about like the Americans right like you had these Americans who were like This is not fair. These British people are not treating us fairly. You know what we need to do We need to go to war with them. And it was not like all like just a little soldiers, whatever it was bloody and awful and bullets and maiming. And you know, that was justified because we were fighting for the right. So I feel like these guys feel a lot the same, like, Hey, we tried the American way. They do not treat us justly. So I think, you know, kind of playing a little bit of devil's advocate there. You think, oh, they're so horrible like, you know, that's from our view.
Kat Lewis:There's a scale.
Laurel Thomas:This goes into the social truths question. What truths about society or the human experience or explored, confirmed, or challenged, and I would say. that. They are all of the above. They're explored, confirmed, and challenged. Because, yeah, they do see the system as an honorable system, and yet within that system, I would have to disagree with Micah. The brutality of that system set it apart to the extent that one of his men said,"if you're here when death comes, you'll scare him away". So that's not your normal system of government or politics or anything. It's a level of fear driven culture shaping that
Kat Lewis:Yeah, and I think that, Micah, again, you had mentioned before that we see It's so easy to think, oh, that was in the 70s and that's so dated. And, no, this system and the structure still exists in modern day gangs. I do think that there are in mafia.
Micah Leydorf:There's still mafia.
Kat Lewis:There's still mafia, but I don't know if in American culture we feel that as much as we feel gang presence. Or as much as gang presence is more talked about. But also I think there's lots of organizations that gather people groups together and, and create this kind of blind loyalist mentality to where we forget to think about the person on the other side of our actions. I think like that's a social truth for us as like a modern audience of listen show up at any protests that you want but be very cognizant and be very aware that you're not just going along with this blind devotion to the cause and you don't care about, right?
Laurel Thomas:The blind bitterness of"it's not fair, therefore..."
Kat Lewis:right? I can justify X, Y, and Z because it is not fair. And we just see this so viscerally portrayed in this novel.
Melissa Grace:That brings me to one of the other quotes, I thought was so interesting was at the very, very end where Tom Hagen goes and we always call him Tom Hagen. I think that's hilarious because he's he doesn't have. He's not Tom. He's not Hagen. He's Tom Hagen, but. He goes to K. And Kay after she leaves and Kay says, so you're not going to come after me with a bunch of machine guns. And he's like, that is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. I mean, he just, he doesn't see them as
Kat Lewis:as barbaric.
Melissa Grace:He does not see, he sees them as as a means to a necessary end only as a means to a necessary end. We're not bloodthirsty. We make a calculated decision to, to engage in this violence to save more violence. I mean, he, it just, It was so, it's, that was what was so interesting to me and I love how you bring in, Laurel, you bring in the idea of the family, cause I think, I think I read something that, that was the story that Mario Puzo really wanted to write, was that it comes down to family.
Laurel Thomas:Well, you can tell by our conversation, a bestseller is the bestseller for a reason. There are layers of interesting characters and conflict. There's a global aspect and there are controversial aspects. And so as we just conclude our discussion on The Godfather, you know, what do you think? Give us a little feedback. Have you read the book? Have you read, have you seen the movies? Because they are different. For me, it was kind of painful, but there's a lot of complexity in that novel that was communicated well and on the screen.
Micah Leydorf:I just want to throw out before we conclude that there is also a very R rating on this book, just for our listeners. So they won't be like, wait, Laurel and Micah and Kat! Yes. Didn't say anything about that. So, so there's a lot of, not only is there a lot of violence, which should be evident, there's also a lot of sex. So just tell you, it's a very R rated book as well as movie. So yes,
Laurel Thomas:we need to conclude on that. Thank you so much for listening. Join us again for Stories That Change Us.
