Book I

The Godfather opens in 1945, at the wedding of Connie Corleone, the only daughter of Vito Cor-leone, the head of the most powerful organized crime family in the United States. During the wedding, Corleone, respectfully referred to as the Don or Godfather, is obliged to meet with people who seek his help. As the novel explains, "by tradition no Sicilian can refuse a request on his daughter's wedding day." One man's daughter was raped, and he asks Don Corleone to punish the rapists; another man needs political support so that his daughter's fiancé will not be deported; another, the Don's actual godson, is a famous singer whose career will fail if he does not get the movie role that a Hollywood producer has refused to him.

The long wedding sequence is used to introduce the main characters. Don Corleone's oldest son, Sonny, is a hot-tempered ladies...