Richard Condon

Richard Thomas Condon (New York, New York, March 18, 1915–Dallas, Texas, April 9, 1996), was a prolific and popular American novelist whose works were almost obsessively focused on 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 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 in 1959, and many years later for four novels about a family of New York gangsters named Prizzi.

Condon's works are difficult to precisely categorize; although they combined many different elements, 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, and he attacked them wholeheartedly but with a uniquely original style and wit that made a Condon paragraph from almost any of his books instantly recognizable. Reviewing one of his works in the International Herald Tribune, the well-known playwright George Axelrod (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."

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 Confession, was not published until he was 43. His next book, The Manchurian Candidate, which combined all the elements that defined his works for the next 30 years, 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 wrote more and more books with the same central themes, however, his cult following fell away and his critical reputation diminished. But he continued to pull 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 books that were turned into Hollywood movies, The Manchurian Candidate was filmed twice, the first version, in 1962, now being generally recognized as one of the greatest movies of all time. Because of its perceived parallels with the 1963 assasination 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.