Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Condon, Richard (Vol. 100) - John Skow (review date 22 September 1986)

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John Skow (review date 22 September 1986)

SOURCE: "Mafioso," in Time, Vol. 128, No. 12, September 22, 1986, p. 95.

[In the following review, Skow comments on the characters of Prizzi's Family.]

"Prequel" is one of those smarmy coinages, like "brunch," that make a self-respecting user of language want to wash his mouth out with whisky. Brunch can be avoided by not getting out of bed before noon on Sundays, but prequel—ptui!—probably is inevitable for works such as Richard Condon's rowdy new novel, a report on the formative years of the author's lovable but dumb Mafia assassin Charley Partanna.

Condon's book [Prizzi's Family] is not so stirring an achievement as to be inevitable, but it is cheerful and funny, and no effort should be made to avoid it. Charley, of course, is the hero of Prizzi's Honor, the 1982 Condon novel that Director John Huston turned into one of Jack Nicholson's better films. There...

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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