Mario Puzo - The Family

T HE BIGGEST SURPRISE for me when I first met Mario Puzo was that he was nothing like his characters. The Mario I came to know was a husband, a father, a lover, a mentor, and a true friend. He was kind and generous, authentic as any human being could be, true and funny and smart. From him came the loyalty, the fairness, the compassion that he wrote about in his books, but not the villainy. That aspect came from his nightmares, not from his dreams. He was a shy, soft-spoken, generous man who held very few judgments about others. We spent twenty years together, playing, brainstorming, and working.

Mario was fascinated with Renaissance Italy, and especially with the Borgia family. He swore that they were the original crime family, and that their adventures were much more treacherous than any of the stories he told about the Mafia. He believed the Popes were the first DonsPope Alexander the greatest Don of all.

For most of the years we spent together, Mario told Borgia stories. Their escapades both shocked and amused him, and he even rewrote some of the incidents to make them contemporary enough to put in his Mafia books.

One of Marios greatest pleasures was traveling, and we did it often. After we visited the Vatican in 1983, he was so enchanted by the look, feel, and food of Italy, so taken by its history, that he wanted to write a novel about it. It was that many years ago that he began to write the Borgia book, though even then he referred to it as just another family story. Although he would write several other novels in the years between, each time he had difficulty writing, each time his creativity felt blocked or he felt discouraged, he went back to the Borgia book for inspiration or refuge.

I wish I could write a book with this material and have it make a lot of money, he told me one day as he was lying on the couch in his study, staring at the ceiling as he always did.

Why dont you? I asked.

I was a struggling writer until I was forty-eight years old, honey, he said. I wrote two books the reviewers called classics, and only made five thousand dollars. It was only after I wrote The Godfather that I could feed my family. I was poor for too long to take a chance on something different this late in life.

A fter his heart attack in 1992, I asked him again. Have you thought about the Borgia book?

I have to write two more Mafia books first, and then Ill be set, he said. Besides, I still enjoy hanging out with those characters. Im not sure Im ready to let them go just yet.

During the time we spent in Malibu while he was recovering from his heart surgery, whenever he was uncomfortable or wanted a diversion, he read books on the Italian Renaissance and scribbled Borgia pages for me to read and us to discuss.

Mario was a very funny man with a unique way of looking at things.

Lucrezia was a good girl, he said one day while we were working in his study. And I laughed.

And the rest of the family? I asked. They were the villains?

Cesare was a patriot who desired to be a hero. Alexander was a doting father, a true family man, he said. Like most people, they did some bad things, but that didnt make them bad people. That day we talked and laughed about them for hours, and later that night he completed the scene of Cesare and the Pope fighting over whether he wanted to be a cardinal.

During this time he was only willing to leave his house and go out to dinner when Bert Fields was coming into town. Bert is not only a distinguished historian and lawyer, but was also one of Marios dearest friends. Each time we met, whether it was on the east coast or the west, the dinner conversation somehow always came back to the Borgias. Bert was as excited and amused about the power and treachery of the Renaissance as Mario. When are you going to get the Borgia book together? Bert always asked.

Im working on it, Mario would say.

Hes got a bunch of it done, I told Bert.

And Bert seemed pleased.

As time went on, Mario called Bert frequently to trade stories, asking questions and sharing observations. Each time he finished a conversation with Bert, Mario and I would talk about the Borgias, and he was excited again about writing the stories of the Family.

I ll help you finish the Borgia book, I offered one day in 1995, after wed spent a particularly interesting day talking about the nature of love, relationships, and betrayal.

I dont collaborate until after Im dead, he said, smiling at me.

Okay, I said. But then what do I do with an unfinished book? I sounded calmer than I felt.

He laughed at me. Finish it, he said.

I cant finish it. I dont remember what you taught me, I said, unable even to imagine living in a world without him.

He patted me on the shoulder and said, You can do it. You know the story. Ive written so much of it and weve talked about it for years. You can fill in the missing pieces. Then he touched my cheek, and said, I really have taught you all I know.

Two weeks before he died, though his heart was failing, Mario was still completely lucid. And one day, as I was sitting in his study across from his desk, he reached down and pulled a bunch of pages, handwritten in red felt marker on yellow lined paper, from the bottom drawer of his desk. I thought it was something from Omerta, but it wasnt. Read it, he said, and handed it to me.

And as I read I began to cry. It was the last chapter of the Borgia book.

Finish it, he said. Promise me.

And so I did.

F OR B ERT F IELDS

WHO SNATCHED VICTORY FROM THE JAWS OF DEFEAT AND WHO COULD BE THE GREATEST C ONSIGLIERE OF THEM ALL

W ITH ADMIRATION
M ARIO P UZO