Review

Review: This account of the mafia makes for grim, compelling reading

By Mark Thomas
May 15 2022 - 12:00am
A waxwork of Marlon Brando in The Godfather. Picture: Shutterstock
A waxwork of Marlon Brando in The Godfather. Picture: Shutterstock
  • Mafioso, by Colin McLaren. Hachette, $32.99.

This year, the 50th anniversary of the classic Mafia film The Godfather should have provoked interest in establishing how much of the tale was fact, how much fiction. Apparently, with The Godfather, life did imitate art. Mafiosi picked up mannerisms, aphorisms and techniques as a back-handed tribute to the movie. To balance that point, MacLaren found that the denizens of Corleone disdained the gangster family as created by Francis Ford Coppola.