Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Condon, Richard (Vol. 100) - Donald E. Westlake (review date 13 December 1992)

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Donald E. Westlake (review date 13 December 1992)

SOURCE: "Stalin Goes Hollywood," in The New York Times Book Review, December 13, 1992, pp. 9, 11.

[Below, Westlake calls The Venerable Bead "a lot of fun, loose-jointed, manic, over the top from first word to last."]

Richard Condon has always been way out there on the cutting edge between prescience and lunacy. In toughly comic novels from The Manchurian Candidate to Prizzi's Honor and beyond, he has reflected the real world through a slightly distorting mirror in which our near future grins back at us, without comfort. In such books, there's tight and brilliant control over story, over character, over Mr. Condon's own savagely satirical instinct. But from time to time his irritation boils over, and out of him comes whirling a fictional doomsday machine, mowing down everything in its wake, from our most pious political platitudes to the entire best-seller list. Now, in...

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. John F. Baker (interview date 24 June 1983)
   2. John Skow (review date 22 September 1986)
   3. Michael Neill (essay date 8 December 1986)
   4. Roderick Mann (essay date 16 August 1987)
   5. Charles Champlin (review date 18 September 1988)
   6. Vincent Patrick (review date 9 October 1988)
   7. Jonathan Yardley (review date 7 February 1990)
   8. Ray Blount Jr. (review date 11 February 1990)
   9. Herbert Mitgang (review date 14 February 1990)
   10. Carolyn See (review date 26 February 1990)
   11. Sarah Booth Conroy (review date 10 May 1990)
   12. Alex Heard (review date 10 September 1991)
   13. Herbert Mitgang (review date 18 September 1991)
   14. Kirkus Reviews (review date 15 September 1992)
   15. Jay Cantor (review date 29 November 1992)
   16. Herbert Mitgang (review date 2 December 1992)
   17. Donald E. Westlake (review date 13 December 1992)
   18. Joe Queenan (review date 6 February 1994)
   19. Chris Petrakos (review date 20 February 1994)
   20. Lorrie K. Inagaki (review date Summer 1994)
   21. Mel Gussow (obituary date 10 April 1996)
   22. Charles McCarry (obituary date 10 April 1996)
   23. Myrna Oliver (obituary date 10 April 1996)
4. Further Reading
5. Copyright