''The Keener's Manual'' is an imaginary book created by the 20th-century American political novelist

Richard Condon Richard Thomas Condon (March 18, 1915 – April 9, 1996) was an American political novelist. Though his works were satire, they were generally transformed into thrillers or semi-thrillers in other media, such as cinema. All 26 books were writte ...

. 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 ''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. The novel is a tragicomedy about the attempted theft of a masterpie ...

'', ''

Some Angry Angel ''Some Angry Angel: A Mid-Century Faerie Tale'' was Richard Condon's third novel and gave impetus to the growing, though relatively short-lived "Condon cult" of that era. Published in 1960, it is written with all the panache, stylistic tricks, an ...

'', ''

A Talent for Loving ''A Talent for Loving; or The Great Cowboy Race'' was the fourth novel by Richard Condon Richard Thomas Condon (March 18, 1915 – April 9, 1996) was an American political novelist. Though his works were satire, they were generally transforme ...

'', ''

An Infinity of Mirrors ''An Infinity of Mirrors'' was the fifth and most ambitious book by the American satirist and political novelist Richard Condon. First published by Random House in 1964, it is set in France and Germany of the 1930s and 1940s, as seen through th ...

'', and '' Any God Will Do''. Only his second, and most famous novel, ''

The Manchurian Candidate ''The Manchurian Candidate'' is a novel by Richard Condon, first published in 1959. It is a political thriller about the son of a prominent U.S. political family who is brainwashed into being an unwitting assassin for a Communist conspiracy. The ...

'', derived its title elsewhere. A number of his later books also reference it for epigraphs, without, however, using any of its verse as a source for titles. 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."

''The Oldest Confession''

The epigraph to Condon's first novel, which appears on the title page of the first American hardback edition, reads in its entirety:

The Oldest Confession
Is one of Need,
Half the need Love,
The other half Greed

Later 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. On page 142 the protagonist, James Bourne, is at his grandiloquent worst as he once again tries to justify his criminality to his mistress: "I am you and you are me and what can we do for the salvation of each other?" 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?" 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?" 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." Apparently, to Condon, this phrase denotes the inter-connectedness of all human beings to each other, particularly those who are committed lovers. "I am you and you are me and what can we do for the salvation of each other?"

''Some Angry Angel''

In Condon's third novel, published in 1960, the following verse is found in two places: as an epigraph on a blank frontis page five pages after the title page and two pages before the beginning of the text; and, on page 275, as the closing words of the book. The first quotation is attributed to ''The Keener's Manual'' but not the second.The entire verse is in italics in both citations in the book. '' Some Angry Angel: A Mid-Century Faerie Tale'', McGraw-Hill, New York, 1960, Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 60-8826 ::''Some angry angel,'' ::''Bleared by Bach and too inbred,'' ::''Climbed out of bed,'' ::''Pulled on a sock,'' ::''And, glancing downward,'' ::''Threw a rock'' ::''Which struck an earthbound peacock's head.'' ::''The peacock fell.'' ::''The peacock's yell,'' ::''Outraged by such treason,'' ::''Cried out to know why it,'' ::''Out of billions,'' ::''Should be hit,'' ::''And instantly invented a reason.''

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Keener's Lament Fictional books