Puzo was born in the Hell's Kitchen section of New York City to Italian immigrants from the Province of Avellino; his father was from Pietradefusi and his mother from Ariano Irpino. When Puzo was 12, his father, who worked as … See more

In 1950, Puzo's first short story, "The Last Christmas," was published in American Vanguard and republished in the 1953 anthology New Voices: American Writing Today #1. After the war, he wrote his first book, the n… See more