Not sure if most are familiar with Puzo's use of Godfather characters in The Sicilian, where Michael and Vito are just minor characters, background characters, that only come into the story once and a while.

A thought crossed my mind...

What if GFR had been done this way, focusing more on the rise of Geraci rather than skipping around to the multiple different storylines? I thought some may favor it, but I personally wouldn't. I enjoyed parts of Michael's story, and I definetly enjoyed Tom and Fredo's stories. Geraci, in the end, comes off as an underdeveloped and two-dimensional character, in my mind.

Do you think the book would have been better if it focused more directly on Geraci with the rest of the known Corleone family characters as simple background elements?

Winegardner, all in all, is a good writer-however, the more he stayed away from the original characters, the better the book would have been. I don't think that any of the characters were portrayed acurately in his book. If the book concentrated more on Geraci, and the original characters were only minor, I think that it would have been much more satisfying.

I just didn't find this guy's character that compelling. It seems like a waste of creativity to have this guy complete law school training and be relegated to "working the docks," so to speak.

I couldn't give to sh!ts about Geraci. He's nothing! He was never mentioned in the original book, the movies... anything! He should have never existed!

Winegardner could have built a Geraci-like character out of a minor character that appears in the movies or the book... someone who we know. Someone who has a face. It could have been someone as small as an extra in the movie or the book. Winegardner could have built his backstory, made him fit into the Godfather universe. Geraci sticks out like a sore thumb. Geraci was a bore, and any more time spent on him would have made the book even worse... and that's almost impossible!

There were many other directions Winegardner could have gone in, but it appears to me that he took the worst possible route in TGR.

Nope theres a worce way. I was reading the back of my "The Fortunate Pilgrim" book and the cheif editor at random house said
"Some were dismissed on account of inadvisable plot lines. (Michael Corleone falls in love with a Native American activist. Or, the Corleone women take over thee family business. Or, Sonny Corleone didn't really die)"
Well IDK about you but I think it would be very hard to explain how a bullet riddled Sonny C. dug himself out of a confin and six feet up

I read that article in the back of The Last Don the other weekend. Other than the "Sonny still alive plot," I would like to see any of those other plots put in a book over the one we actually got in TGR.

This is foolishness. How in the world could it be that Sonny didnt die? Was it all a bad dream?

Yeah, it begins with Sonny in a shower, advertiseing soap (just for you Dallas fans )