Mario Puzo (puzio ... gack!!) wrote a fabulous book, didn’t he! My former mother-in-law was as Italian as Italian gets. She told me that the book was fiction only in a technical sense, but that I could and should believe that every word was true in the larger sense.
A great “popular” history of organized crime is the ‘50s classic “Brotherhood of Evil.” I read it as a cheap paperback my parents had in the bookcase. The shocker is . . . it appears to have been the source book for “The Godfather.” Only about 15 yrs separate the publication of both books. The public has a very short memory.
I was hooked when I saw the first scene of the first movie. Every character at the wedding looked like someone who was in my family’s, especially grandparents, circle of friends. I like the movies as much for the portrayals of Sicilian culture as the mafia stuff.