The Fortunate Pilgrim (1965) by Mario Puzo

 1,001 Novels: A Library of America

The Fortunate Pilgrim (1965)

by Mario Puzo

Hell's Kitchen

Manhattan: 28/33

New York: 77/105

 Mario Puzo had one of those mid 20th century literary careers that is still recognizable today:  Early struggles with works of "serious" fiction, like this book, his second novel, failed to bring him the success he thought he deserved.  He decided to write a book that would sell and created a 15 page outline of The Godfather for his publisher.  Film Producer Robert Evans got his hand on the outline, recognized the potential, and optioned the finished work- before it was published.  Given the circumstances, there is no question that Puzo simply must have written The Godfather with the movie version in mind- I didn't know it at the time, but when I read The Godfather I thought it shared more similarities with the completed film based on the book than anything I'd ever read before.

 The Fortunate Pilgrim was Puzo's love letter to his Italian-American mother, who, if the book is to be believed, raised a whole family by herself after her first husband died and her second husband went insane and died.   There is no denying the serious intent of Puzo, but it also seems impossible to deny that he was anything more than, at best, a gifted story teller and at worst, a hack with impeccable timing.  You might say the same about Francis Ford Coppola as well. 

  Still, there's no denying the pleasures of The Fortunate Pilgrim. I actually highlighted a bunch of prose that left me enthralled:

On this Sunday afternoon, when everything was still, the abandoned yellow, brown, and black railroad cars made solid geometric blocks in the liquid golden sunshine, abstractions in a jungle of steel and iron, stone and brick. The gleaming silvery tracks snaked in and out. - 62

And the narrow skull turned toward her, the face elongated in the bare-toothed grimace of a wild animal trapped in terror. a face of hopeless satanic madness.  -118

The voice was the horrible hoarse voice that some whores have, as if torrents of diseased semen flooding the body had rotted the vocal cords. -253

  It might be hacky, but it is also effective prose.  The Fortunate Pilgrim does a great job fulfilling its location on the 1,001 Novels: A Library of America map- in Hell's Kitchen.  This is a clear snapshot of the "before" when Hell's Kitchen was the breeding ground for Italian and Irish gangsters.