Includes bibliographical references (pages 317-325) and index
Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Part I : Popular fiction criticism and American careers -- Popular fiction : taste, sentiment, and the culture of criticism ; Mario Puzo : an American writer's career -- Part II : Reading The godfather : critical strategies and theoretical models ; Bakhtin and Puzo : authority as the family business ; The godfather and the ethnic ensemble ; Barthes and Puzo : the authority of the signifier -- Part III : Positioning The godfather in American narrative study -- The godfather and melodrama : authorizing the Corleones as American heroes ; Corleones as Our gang : The godfather interrogated by Doctorow's Ragtime ; American inadvertent epic : The godfather copied ; The godfather sung by The Sopranos