Eulogy

By Karl Taro Greenfeld

Forget for a moment The Godfather--the 21 million-selling book and the movie that virtually created the Mafia as literary and cinematic subject. Forget The Fortunate Pilgrim, The Sicilian, The Last Don and other best sellers. Forget Superman, Earthquake and the rest of the blockbusters. Forget two Academy Awards. Forget that he wrote some of the best stuff ever about the American family and the Italian-American immigrant experience. Forget that all this was done by the son of illiterate immigrant parents.

I think of MARIO PUZO this way: When I was younger, struggling for a sense of place in the world of letters, this older, wiser author of indisputable talent and success not only offered me steady encouragement but took the time to read my adolescent jottings. But that was Mario: that smile, those mischievous eyes, that wry humor--one part paisano and one part prince. He treated everyone, from studio chiefs to busboys, exactly the same--well, maybe busboys a little better.

I've known him since I was in grade school. He taught me pinochle. And when I was in my 20s and he in his 70s, he took my calls when I had doubts about my work or questions about the business of books. Last time I saw him, he showed me a chart on which he had outlined his book Omerta. He joked that I could use it when he was done.

--Karl Taro Greenfeld, staff writer, TIME