Richard Condon
Encyclopedia
Richard Thomas Condon was a prolific and popular American political novelist whose satiric works were generally presented in the form of thrillers or semi-thrillers. More than being particularly clever genre works, however, all 26 books were written in a style nearly always instantly recognizable as Condon's, while their focus was almost always obsessively directed at monetary greed and political corruption. Fast-moving and easily accessible, they generally combined elements of political satire, bare-knuckled outrage at the greed and corruption of those in power, and were written with extravagant characterizations and a uniquely sparkling and frequently humorous style. Condon himself once said: "Every book I've ever written has been about abuse of power. I feel very strongly about that. I'd like people to know how deeply their politicians wrong them." Condon occasionally achieved bestseller status, and many of his books were made into films, but today he is primarily remembered for two of his works: an early book, The Manchurian Candidate
of 1959, and, many years later, for four novels about a family of New York gangsters named Prizzi
.
Condon's writing was known for its complex plotting, fascination with trivia, and loathing for those in power; at least two of his books featured thinly disguised versions of Richard Nixon
. His characters tend to be driven by obsession, usually sexual or political, and by family loyalty. His plots often have elements of classical tragedy
, with protagonists whose pride leads them to a place to destroy what they love. Some of his books, most notably Mile High (1969), are perhaps best described as secret history
. And Then We Moved to Rossenara is a humorous autobiographical recounting of various places in the world where he had lived and his family's 1970s move to Rossenarra, Co. Kilkenny, Ireland
.
, Condon attended DeWitt Clinton High School
.
After service in the United States Merchant Marine
, Condon achieved moderate success as a Hollywood publicist, ad writer and Hollywood agent. Condon turned to writing in 1957. Employed by United Artists
as an ad writer, he complained that he was wasting time in Hollywood and wished to write a novel. Without Condon's knowledge, his boss, Max E. Youngstein
deducted amounts from his salary then fired him after a year giving him the amount of money he had deducted in the form of a Mexican bank account and the key to a house overlooking the ocean in Mexico. Youngstein told him to write his book. His second novel, The Manchurian Candidate (1959), featured a dedication to Youngstein. The movie made from it in 1962, made him famous. Prizzi's Honor (1982) was likewise made into a successful movie.
upon an unwary populace, Condon sums up the theme of all his books in a single angry cri de coeur:
, for example, in his column in the "Sunday Opinion" of The New York Times of August 17, 2008, writes
about Barack Obama
with a reference to both a well-known actress and a well-known plot element in the first movie version of Condon's 1959 book:
With his long lists of absurd trivia and "mania for absolute details", Condon was, along with Ian Fleming
, one of the early exemplars of those called by Pete Hamill
in a New York Times review, "the practitioners of what might be called the New Novelism... Condon applies a dense web of facts to fiction.... There might really be two kinds of fiction: the fiction of sensibility and the fiction of information... As a practitioner of the fiction of information, no one else comes close to him."
(The Seven-Year Itch, Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter), who had collaborated with Condon on the screenplay for the film adaptation of The Manchurian Candidate, wrote:
Writing about The Whisper of the Axe in the daily book review column of Friday, May 21, 1976, in the New York Times, Richard R. Lingeman praised the book in particular and Condon in general for his "extravagance of invention unique with him."
Not everyone was as exhilarated by Condon's antics, however. In a long Times Sunday review just two days after Lingeman's, Roger Sale excoriated Condon as a writer of "how-to books" in general, this book in particular, and Condon's habit of using lists: "A lot of it is done with numbers abritrarily chosen to falsely simulate precision."
, was not published until he was 43. The demands of his career with United Artists—promoting dreadful movies such as The Pride and the Passion
and A King and Four Queens—led to a series of bleeding ulcers and a determination to do something else.
His next book, The Manchurian Candidate, which combined all the elements that defined his works for the next 30 years—nefarious conspiracies, satire, black humor, outrage at political and financial corruption in the American scene, breath-taking elements from thrillers and spy fiction, horrific and grotesque violence, and an obsession with the minutiae of food, drink, and fast living—quickly made him, for a few years at least, the center of a cult devoted to his works. As he quickly produced more and more books with the same central themes, however, his cult following fell away and his critical reputation diminished. But over the next three decades Condon continued to pull occasional surprises from his literary hat with books such as Mile High
, Winter Kills
, and the first of the Prizzi books, Prizzi's Honor
, that returned him to favor, both with the critics and the book-buying public.
Of his numerous books that were turned into Hollywood movies, The Manchurian Candidate was filmed twice. The first version, in 1962, which starred Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey, Janet Leigh, and Angela Lansbury, followed the book with great fidelity, and is now generally recognized as one of the greatest films of all time. At the time, however, because of its perceived parallels with the 1963 assassination of John F. Kennedy
, it was quickly removed from circulation and it was not until its re-release in 1998 that it began to garner a general but belated acclaim. Janet Maslin, writing in 1996 in The New York Times, said that it was "arguably the most chilling piece of cold war paranoia ever committed to film, yet by now it has developed a kind of innocence."
Five of Condon's first six books derived their titles the fictional manual, the only exception being his most famous book, The Manchurian Candidate. The epigraph in The Manchurian Candidate, however, "I am you and you are me /and what have we done to each other?" is a recurring theme in earlier Condon's books: in various forms it also appears as dialog in both The Oldest Confession and Some Angry Angel. Among other epigraphs, the last line of "The riches I bring you /Crowding and shoving, /Are the envy of princes: /A talent for loving." is the title of Condon's fourth novel. His fifth and sixth novels, An Infinity of Mirrors and Any God Will Do, also derive their titles from excerpts of the manual.
. She wrote about the apparent plagiarism
on her website but her discovery went unnoticed by most of the world until Adair Lara, a longtime San Francisco Chronicle
staff writer, wrote a lengthy article about the accusation in 2003. Reprinting the paragraphs in question, she also solicited the opinion of a British "forensic linguist", who concluded that Condon had unquestionably plagiarized at least two paragraphs of Graves's work. By this time, however, more than seven years had passed since Condon's death and Lara's article also failed to generate any literary interest outside the Chronicle.
Curiously enough, in Some Angry Angel, the book that followed The Manchurian Candidate, Condon makes a direct reference to Graves. In a long, convoluted passage on page 25 Condon reflects on "mistresses" and their, apparently peripheral relationship, at least to the reader, to Graves's writings about "Major Male" Deities and "Major Female" Deities. As Angel was published only a year after Candidate, there is no question, therefore, about Condon's familiarity with the works of Robert Graves.
Condon's familiarity with the works of Robert Graves is also in evidence on p.127 of his first novel, The Oldest Confession. One of the characters in the book purchases a copy of Graves' Antigua, Penny, Puce!
The Manchurian Candidate
The Manchurian Candidate , by Richard Condon, is a political thriller novel about the son of a prominent US political family who is brainwashed into being an unwitting assassin for the Communist Party....
of 1959, and, many years later, for four novels about a family of New York gangsters named Prizzi
Prizzi
Prizzi is a town and comune of 5,711 inhabitants in the Italian province of Palermo, on the island of Sicily. It is located south of the city of Palermo at an altitude of 696 m above sea level on a hill in the upper valley of the River Sosio...
.
Condon's writing was known for its complex plotting, fascination with trivia, and loathing for those in power; at least two of his books featured thinly disguised versions of Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...
. His characters tend to be driven by obsession, usually sexual or political, and by family loyalty. His plots often have elements of classical tragedy
Tragedy
Tragedy is a form of art based on human suffering that offers its audience pleasure. While most cultures have developed forms that provoke this paradoxical response, tragedy refers to a specific tradition of drama that has played a unique and important role historically in the self-definition of...
, with protagonists whose pride leads them to a place to destroy what they love. Some of his books, most notably Mile High (1969), are perhaps best described as secret history
Secret history
A secret history is a revisionist interpretation of either fictional or real history which is claimed to have been deliberately suppressed, forgotten, or ignored by established scholars.-Secret histories of the real world:...
. And Then We Moved to Rossenara is a humorous autobiographical recounting of various places in the world where he had lived and his family's 1970s move to Rossenarra, Co. Kilkenny, Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
.
Life
Born in New York CityNew York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, Condon attended DeWitt Clinton High School
DeWitt Clinton High School
DeWitt Clinton High School is an American high school located in the Bronx, New York City, New York.-History:Clinton opened in 1897 at 60 West 13th Street at the northern end of Greenwich Village under the name of Boys High School, although this Boys High School was not related to the one in Brooklyn...
.
After service in the United States Merchant Marine
United States Merchant Marine
The United States Merchant Marine refers to the fleet of U.S. civilian-owned merchant vessels, operated by either the government or the private sector, that engage in commerce or transportation of goods and services in and out of the navigable waters of the United States. The Merchant Marine is...
, Condon achieved moderate success as a Hollywood publicist, ad writer and Hollywood agent. Condon turned to writing in 1957. Employed by United Artists
United Artists
United Artists Corporation is an American film studio. The original studio of that name was founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charles Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks....
as an ad writer, he complained that he was wasting time in Hollywood and wished to write a novel. Without Condon's knowledge, his boss, Max E. Youngstein
Max E. Youngstein
Max E. Youngstein was an American film producer who worked for United Artists, formed United Artists Music and United Artists Records then became an independent film producer.-Biography:...
deducted amounts from his salary then fired him after a year giving him the amount of money he had deducted in the form of a Mexican bank account and the key to a house overlooking the ocean in Mexico. Youngstein told him to write his book. His second novel, The Manchurian Candidate (1959), featured a dedication to Youngstein. The movie made from it in 1962, made him famous. Prizzi's Honor (1982) was likewise made into a successful movie.
Basic theme throughout Condon's books
In Mile High, his eighth novel, one primarily about how a single spectacularly ruthless gangster named Eddie West imposes ProhibitionProhibition
Prohibition of alcohol, often referred to simply as prohibition, is the practice of prohibiting the manufacture, transportation, import, export, sale, and consumption of alcohol and alcoholic beverages. The term can also apply to the periods in the histories of the countries during which the...
upon an unwary populace, Condon sums up the theme of all his books in a single angry cri de coeur:
"Prohibition fused the amateurism and catch-as-catch-can national tendencies of the early days of the republic with a more modern, highly organized lust for violence and the quick buck. It fused the need to massacre twelve hundred thousand American Indians and ten million American buffalo, the lynching bees, the draft riots, bread riots, gold riots and race riots, the constant wars, the largest rats in the biogest slums, boxing and football, the loudest music, the most strident and exploitative press with the entire wonderful promise of tomorrow and tomorrow, always dragging the great nation downward into greater violence and more unnecessary deaths, into newer and more positive celebration of nonlife, all so that the savage, simple-minded people might be educated into greater frenzies of understanding that power and money are the only desirable objects for this life."
"Manchurian Candidate"
Although not perhaps actually originated by Condon himself, his use of "the Manchurian Candidate" made that phrase a part of the English language. Frank RichFrank Rich
Frank Rich is an American essayist and op-ed columnist who wrote for The New York Times from 1980, when he was appointed its chief theatre critic, until 2011...
, for example, in his column in the "Sunday Opinion" of The New York Times of August 17, 2008, writes
about Barack Obama
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...
with a reference to both a well-known actress and a well-known plot element in the first movie version of Condon's 1959 book:
"[Obama's] been done in by that ad with BritneyBritney SpearsBritney Jean Spears is an American recording artist and entertainer. Born in McComb, Mississippi, and raised in Kentwood, Louisiana, Spears began performing as a child, landing acting roles in stage productions and television shows. She signed with Jive Records in 1997 and released her debut album...
[Spears] and ParisParis HiltonParis Whitney Hilton is an American businesswoman, heiress, and socialite. She is a great-granddaughter of Conrad Hilton . Hilton is known for her controversial participation in a sex tape in 2003, and appearance on the television series The Simple Life alongside fellow socialite and childhood...
[Hilton] and a new international crisis that allows [John] McCainJohn McCainJohn Sidney McCain III is the senior United States Senator from Arizona. He was the Republican nominee for president in the 2008 United States election....
to again flex his Manchurian Candidate military cred. Let the neocons identify a new battleground for igniting World War III... and McCain gets with the program as if Angela LansburyAngela LansburyAngela Brigid Lansbury CBE is an English actress and singer in theatre, television and motion pictures, whose career has spanned eight decades and earned her more performance Tony Awards than any other individual , with five wins...
has just dealt him the Queen of HeartsQueen (playing card)The Queen is a playing card with a picture of a queen on it. The usual rank of a queen is as if it were 12 ....
".
"The fiction of information"
Condon's works are difficult to categorize precisely: A 1971 Time magazine review declared that, "Condon was never a satirist: he was a riot in a satire factory. He raged at Western civilization and every last one of its works. He decorticated the Third Reich, cheese fanciers, gossip columnists and the Hollywood star system with equal and total frenzy." The headline of his obituary in The New York Times called him a "political novelist", but went on to say that, "Novelist is too limited a word to encompass the world of Mr. Condon. He was also a visionary, a darkly comic conjurer, a student of American mythology and a master of conspiracy theories, as vividly demonstrated in 'The Manchurian Candidate.'" Although his books combined many different elements, including occasional outright fantasy and science fiction, they were, above all, written to entertain the general public. He had, however, a genuine disdain, outrage, and even hatred for many of the mainstream political corruptions that he found so prevalent in American life. In a 1977 quotation, he said that:"...people are being manipulated, exploited, murdered by their servants, who have convinced these savage, simple-minded populations that they are their masters, and that it hurts the head, if one thinks. People accept servants as masters. My novels are merely entertaining persuasions to get the people to think in other categories."
With his long lists of absurd trivia and "mania for absolute details", Condon was, along with Ian Fleming
Ian Fleming
Ian Lancaster Fleming was a British author, journalist and Naval Intelligence Officer.Fleming is best known for creating the fictional British spy James Bond and for a series of twelve novels and nine short stories about the character, one of the biggest-selling series of fictional books of...
, one of the early exemplars of those called by Pete Hamill
Pete Hamill
Pete Hamill is an American journalist, novelist, essayist, editor and educator. Widely traveled and having written on a broad range of topics, he is perhaps best known for his career as a New York City journalist, as "the author of columns that sought to capture the particular flavors of New York...
in a New York Times review, "the practitioners of what might be called the New Novelism... Condon applies a dense web of facts to fiction.... There might really be two kinds of fiction: the fiction of sensibility and the fiction of information... As a practitioner of the fiction of information, no one else comes close to him."
Quirks and characteristics
Condon attacked his targets wholeheartedly but with a uniquely original style and wit that made almost any paragraph from one of his books instantly recognizable. Reviewing one of his works in the International Herald Tribune, the well-known playwright George AxelrodGeorge Axelrod
George Axelrod was an American screenwriter, producer, playwright and film director, best known for his play, The Seven Year Itch , which was adapted into a movie of the same name starring Marilyn Monroe...
(The Seven-Year Itch, Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter), who had collaborated with Condon on the screenplay for the film adaptation of The Manchurian Candidate, wrote:
"The arrival of a new novel by Richard Condon is like an invitation to a party.... the sheer gusto of the prose, the madness of his similies, the lunacy of his metaphors, his infectious, almost child-like joy in composing complex sentences that go bang at the end in the manner of exploding cigars is both exhilarating and as exhausting as any good party ought to be."
Metaphors and similes
From his 1975 novel, Money Is Love, comes a fine example of the "lunacy of his metaphors": "Mason took in enough cannabis smoke to allow a Lipan Apache manipulating a blanket over it to transmit the complete works of Tennyson."The Manchurian Candidate offers:
"The effects of the narcotics, techniques, and suggestions... achieved a result that approximated the impact an entire twenty-five-cent jar of F. W. Woolworth vanishing cream might have on vanishing an aircraft carrier of the Forrestal class when rubbed into the armor plate."
Lists and trivia
Condon was also enamored of long lists of detailed trivia that, while at least marginally pertinent to the subject at hand, are almost always an exercise in gleeful exaggeration and joyful spirits. In An Infinity of Mirrors, for instance, those in attendance of the funeral of a famous French actor and notable lover are delineated as:Seven ballerinas of an amazing spectrum of ages were at graveside. Actresses of films, opera, music halls, the theatre, radio, carnivals, circuses, pantomimes, and lewd exhibitions mourned in the front line. There were also society leaders, lady scientists, women politicians, mannequins, couturières, Salvation Army lassies, all but one of his wives, a lady wrestler, a lady matador, twenty-three lady painters, four lady sculptors, a car-wash attendant, shopgirls, shoplifters, shoppers, and the shopped; a zoo assistant, two choir girls, a Métro attendant from the terminal at the Bois de Vincennes, four beauty-contest winners, a chambermaid; the mothers of children, the mothers of men, the grandmothers of children and the grandmothers of men; and the general less specialized, female public-at-large which had come from eleven European countries, women perhaps whom he had only pinched or kissed absent-mindedly while passing through his busy life. They attended twenty-eight hundred and seventy strong, plus eleven male friends of the deceased.
Writing about The Whisper of the Axe in the daily book review column of Friday, May 21, 1976, in the New York Times, Richard R. Lingeman praised the book in particular and Condon in general for his "extravagance of invention unique with him."
Not everyone was as exhilarated by Condon's antics, however. In a long Times Sunday review just two days after Lingeman's, Roger Sale excoriated Condon as a writer of "how-to books" in general, this book in particular, and Condon's habit of using lists: "A lot of it is done with numbers abritrarily chosen to falsely simulate precision."
Real-life names in his books
All of Condon's books have, to an unknown degree, the names of real people in them as characters, generally very minor or peripheral ones. The most common one, which appears in all of his books, is some variation of Franklin M. Heller. Among them are F.M. Heller, Frank Heller, Franz Heller, and F. Marx Heller. The real-life Heller was apparently a television director in New York City in the 1950s, '60s, and 70s, who initially lived on Long Island and then moved to a house on Rockrimmon Road in Stamford, Connecticut. Beginning with Mile High in 1969, mentions of a Rockrimmon Road or Rockrimmon House also began to appear regularly in the novels. Late in life Heller grew a thick white beard and became a devotee of needlework—both traits that the fictional Hellers shared, sometimes to ludricrous effect, as when a battle-hardened Admiral Heller is depicted issuing orders while absorbed in needlework. The real-life Heller made one needlework depiction on the manor house in Ireland in which Condon was living at the time.Career in films
For many years a Hollywood publicity man for Walt Disney and other studios, Condon took up writing relatively late in life and his first novel, The Oldest ConfessionThe Oldest Confession
The Oldest Confession is a 1958 novel, the first of twenty-five by the American political novelist and satirist Richard Condon. It was published by Appleton-Century-Crofts. A tragicomedy about the attempted theft of a masterpiece from a museum in Spain, it engendered, along with other early works...
, was not published until he was 43. The demands of his career with United Artists—promoting dreadful movies such as The Pride and the Passion
The Pride and the Passion
The Pride and the Passion is a historical film drama starring Cary Grant, Frank Sinatra and Sophia Loren made by Stanley Kramer Productions. Set in the Napoleonic era, it is the story of a British officer who has orders to retrieve a huge cannon from Spain and take it to the British forces by ship...
and A King and Four Queens—led to a series of bleeding ulcers and a determination to do something else.
His next book, The Manchurian Candidate, which combined all the elements that defined his works for the next 30 years—nefarious conspiracies, satire, black humor, outrage at political and financial corruption in the American scene, breath-taking elements from thrillers and spy fiction, horrific and grotesque violence, and an obsession with the minutiae of food, drink, and fast living—quickly made him, for a few years at least, the center of a cult devoted to his works. As he quickly produced more and more books with the same central themes, however, his cult following fell away and his critical reputation diminished. But over the next three decades Condon continued to pull occasional surprises from his literary hat with books such as Mile High
Mile High
Mile High is a British television drama based on the lives of the cabin crew members of "fresh!", a budget airline based in London. The name of the show comes from the "Mile High Club". The show was broadcast on Sky1 from 2003 to 2005.-Background:...
, Winter Kills
Winter Kills
Winter Kills is a black comic novel exploring the assassination of a U.S. President. The novel parallels the real life assassination of John F. Kennedy and the various conspiracy theories that surround the event.-Plot summary:...
, and the first of the Prizzi books, Prizzi's Honor
Prizzi's Honor
Prizzi's Honor is a 1985 American black comedy film directed by John Huston. It stars Jack Nicholson, Kathleen Turner, Robert Loggia and Anjelica Huston.The film was adapted by Richard Condon and Janet Roach from Condon's novel of the same name...
, that returned him to favor, both with the critics and the book-buying public.
Of his numerous books that were turned into Hollywood movies, The Manchurian Candidate was filmed twice. The first version, in 1962, which starred Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey, Janet Leigh, and Angela Lansbury, followed the book with great fidelity, and is now generally recognized as one of the greatest films of all time. At the time, however, because of its perceived parallels with the 1963 assassination of John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
, it was quickly removed from circulation and it was not until its re-release in 1998 that it began to garner a general but belated acclaim. Janet Maslin, writing in 1996 in The New York Times, said that it was "arguably the most chilling piece of cold war paranoia ever committed to film, yet by now it has developed a kind of innocence."
The Keener's Manual
Beginning with his first book, The Oldest Confession, Condon frequently prefaced his novels with excerpts of verse from a so-called Keener's Manual; these epigraphs foreshadowed the theme of the book or, in several instances, gave the book its title. The Keener's Manual, however, was a fictional invention by Condon and does not actually exist. A "keen" is a "lamentation for the dead uttered in a loud wailing voice or sometimes in a wordless cry" and a "keener" is a professional mourner, usually a woman in Ireland, who "utters the keen... at a wake or funeral."Five of Condon's first six books derived their titles the fictional manual, the only exception being his most famous book, The Manchurian Candidate. The epigraph in The Manchurian Candidate, however, "I am you and you are me /and what have we done to each other?" is a recurring theme in earlier Condon's books: in various forms it also appears as dialog in both The Oldest Confession and Some Angry Angel. Among other epigraphs, the last line of "The riches I bring you /Crowding and shoving, /Are the envy of princes: /A talent for loving." is the title of Condon's fourth novel. His fifth and sixth novels, An Infinity of Mirrors and Any God Will Do, also derive their titles from excerpts of the manual.
Plagiarism charge
In 1998 a California software engineer noticed several paragraphs in The Manchurian Candidate that appeared nearly identical to portions of the celebrated 1934 novel I, Claudius by the English writer Robert GravesRobert Graves
Robert von Ranke Graves 24 July 1895 – 7 December 1985 was an English poet, translator and novelist. During his long life he produced more than 140 works...
. She wrote about the apparent plagiarism
Plagiarism
Plagiarism is defined in dictionaries as the "wrongful appropriation," "close imitation," or "purloining and publication" of another author's "language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions," and the representation of them as one's own original work, but the notion remains problematic with nebulous...
on her website but her discovery went unnoticed by most of the world until Adair Lara, a longtime San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle
thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...
staff writer, wrote a lengthy article about the accusation in 2003. Reprinting the paragraphs in question, she also solicited the opinion of a British "forensic linguist", who concluded that Condon had unquestionably plagiarized at least two paragraphs of Graves's work. By this time, however, more than seven years had passed since Condon's death and Lara's article also failed to generate any literary interest outside the Chronicle.
Curiously enough, in Some Angry Angel, the book that followed The Manchurian Candidate, Condon makes a direct reference to Graves. In a long, convoluted passage on page 25 Condon reflects on "mistresses" and their, apparently peripheral relationship, at least to the reader, to Graves's writings about "Major Male" Deities and "Major Female" Deities. As Angel was published only a year after Candidate, there is no question, therefore, about Condon's familiarity with the works of Robert Graves.
Condon's familiarity with the works of Robert Graves is also in evidence on p.127 of his first novel, The Oldest Confession. One of the characters in the book purchases a copy of Graves' Antigua, Penny, Puce!
Works—all novels except as noted
- The Oldest ConfessionThe Oldest ConfessionThe Oldest Confession is a 1958 novel, the first of twenty-five by the American political novelist and satirist Richard Condon. It was published by Appleton-Century-Crofts. A tragicomedy about the attempted theft of a masterpiece from a museum in Spain, it engendered, along with other early works...
, Appleton-Century-Crofts, New York, 1958, Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 58-8662; Longman, London, 1959, as The Happy Thieves - The Manchurian CandidateThe Manchurian CandidateThe Manchurian Candidate , by Richard Condon, is a political thriller novel about the son of a prominent US political family who is brainwashed into being an unwitting assassin for the Communist Party....
, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1959, Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 59-8533 - Some Angry Angel: A Mid-Century Faerie Tale, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1960, Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 60-8826
- A Talent for Loving; or, The Great Cowboy Race, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1961, Library of Congress Catalog Card Number:61-10467; later made into the film version A Talent for LovingA Talent for LovingA Talent for Loving is a British-American comedy Western film directed by Richard Quine, and based on the 1961 parodic Western novel A Talent for Loving, or The Great Cowboy Race by Richard Condon, who also wrote the screenplay. The film stars Richard Widmark and Cesar Romero.-Cast:*Richard...
(1969) for which Condon himself wrote the script - An Infinity of Mirrors, Random House, New York, 1964, Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 64-17935
- Any God Will Do, Random House, New York, 1964, Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 66-21462
- The Ecstasy Business, The Dial Press, New York, 1967, Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 67-14467
- Mile HighMile HighMile High is a British television drama based on the lives of the cabin crew members of "fresh!", a budget airline based in London. The name of the show comes from the "Mile High Club". The show was broadcast on Sky1 from 2003 to 2005.-Background:...
, The Dial Press, New York, 1969, Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 77-80497 - The Vertical Smile (1971)
- Arigato (1972)
- The Mexican Stove (1973)—cookbook co-written with his daughter Wendy Bennett
- And Then We Moved to Rossenarra: or, The Art of Emigrating, The Dial Press, New York, 1973, PS3553.0487z5—memoir
- Winter KillsWinter KillsWinter Kills is a black comic novel exploring the assassination of a U.S. President. The novel parallels the real life assassination of John F. Kennedy and the various conspiracy theories that surround the event.-Plot summary:...
(1974) - The Star-Spangled Crunch (1974)
- Money Is Love (1975)
- The Whisper of the Axe (1976)
- The Abandoned Woman (1977)
- Death of a Politician (1978)
- BandicootBandicootBandicoots are a group of about 20 species of small to medium-sized, terrestrial marsupial omnivores in the order Peramelemorphia.- Etymology :...
(1979) - The Entwining (1981)
- Prizzi's HonorPrizzi's HonorPrizzi's Honor is a 1985 American black comedy film directed by John Huston. It stars Jack Nicholson, Kathleen Turner, Robert Loggia and Anjelica Huston.The film was adapted by Richard Condon and Janet Roach from Condon's novel of the same name...
(1982) - A Trembling upon Rome (1983)
- Prizzi's Family (1986)
- Prizzi's Glory (1988)
- Emperor of AmericaEmperor of AmericaFor the self-proclaimed Emperor of the United States, see Emperor NortonEmperor of America is a novel by Richard Condon. It is a satire about an "Imperial Presidency", poking fun at Ronald Reagan.-Plot summary:...
(1990) - The Final Addiction (1991)
- The Venerable Bead (1992)
Films adapted from Condon novels
- The Happy ThievesThe Happy ThievesThe Happy Thieves is a 1962 movie starring Rita Hayworth and directed by George Marshall.-Cast:*Rita Hayworth as Eve Lewis*Rex Harrison as Jimmy Bourne*Joseph Wiseman as Jean Marie Calbert*Alida Valli as Duchess Blanca...
, from The Oldest ConfessionThe Oldest ConfessionThe Oldest Confession is a 1958 novel, the first of twenty-five by the American political novelist and satirist Richard Condon. It was published by Appleton-Century-Crofts. A tragicomedy about the attempted theft of a masterpiece from a museum in Spain, it engendered, along with other early works...
, 1962
- The Manchurian Candidate (1962 film)The Manchurian CandidateThe Manchurian Candidate , by Richard Condon, is a political thriller novel about the son of a prominent US political family who is brainwashed into being an unwitting assassin for the Communist Party....
, 1962
- A Talent for Loving (film)A Talent for LovingA Talent for Loving is a British-American comedy Western film directed by Richard Quine, and based on the 1961 parodic Western novel A Talent for Loving, or The Great Cowboy Race by Richard Condon, who also wrote the screenplay. The film stars Richard Widmark and Cesar Romero.-Cast:*Richard...
, 1969
- Winter Kills (film)Winter KillsWinter Kills is a black comic novel exploring the assassination of a U.S. President. The novel parallels the real life assassination of John F. Kennedy and the various conspiracy theories that surround the event.-Plot summary:...
, 1979
- Prizzi's Honor (film)Prizzi's HonorPrizzi's Honor is a 1985 American black comedy film directed by John Huston. It stars Jack Nicholson, Kathleen Turner, Robert Loggia and Anjelica Huston.The film was adapted by Richard Condon and Janet Roach from Condon's novel of the same name...
, 1985
- The Manchurian Candidate (2004 film)The Manchurian CandidateThe Manchurian Candidate , by Richard Condon, is a political thriller novel about the son of a prominent US political family who is brainwashed into being an unwitting assassin for the Communist Party....
, 2004