SOURCE: "The Godfather," in Bestsellers: Popular Fiction of the 1970s, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1981, pp. 38-41.

In the following essay, Sutherland discusses the publishing history of The Godfather and the source of the novel's wide popular appeal.

I wrote it to make money…. How come you people never ask writers about money?

The background to The Godfather is well known and blatantly self-proclaimed. Puzo wrote two 'literary' novels which were well received (The New York Times's 'small classic' is a phrase which stuck in the proud author's mind), but which netted only $6,500 between them. 'I was forty-five years old and tired of being an artist…. It was time to grow up and sell out.' Publishers had shown some interest in 'that Mafia stuff' in his second novel, which dealt principally with the struggle of an Italian immigrant family. So Puzo drew up the outline of a full-blown...