The Keener's Manual

From it Condon used quotations or epigraphs, generally in verse, to either illustrate the theme of his novels, or, in a large number of cases, as the source of the title, in particular six of his first seven books: The Oldest Confession, Some Angry Angel, A Talent for Loving, An Infinity of Mirrors, and Any God Will Do.

"[3] The epigraph to Condon's first novel, which appears on the title page of the first American hardback edition, reads in its entirety:[4] The Oldest Confession Is one of Need, Half the need Love, The other half GreedLater we encounter the first use of a phrase that is more widely known as the epigraph to The Manchurian Candidate than it is associated with this book; it has also appeared in other works by Condon.

"[5] Two hundred pages later, as the book comes to its tragic conclusion, one broken woman tries to console another with an equally long-winded speech that ends with, "I am you and you are me and what have we done to each other?

"[6] A year later, with the publication of the book that was to make Condon famous, we find, on a frontis page of The Manchurian Candidate, two separate epigraphs, one supposedly from the Standard Dictionary of Folklore, Mythology and Legend, and the other, shorter one, from The Keener's Manual: "I am you and you are me and what have we done to each other?

"[7] In Condon's next book, Some Angry Angel a charismatic but homeless "rumdumb", orates to his fellow bums, "If this world is a legacy of Jesus Christ, then I am you and you are me and each flock to its own fold."