

-INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER
RICHARD CONDON

In telling the story of Edward Courance West, the man who invented Prohibition, Richard Condon lavishly creates the three generational saga of a powerful Irish American family whose acquisition of wealth is also the history of American corruption. As fabulously entertaining as ever, this virtuoso spinner of truthful fables wins new honor as a profound historical reporter, a muck-raker exposing the trip on which America got taken up the stream of the twentieth century.
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With the super-patriot West, the reader is taken on a wild tour through realistically detailed scenes, often funny, often frightening, in seafront saloons, Mafia meetings, lush brothels, splendid homes, prodigal dinners here and abroad; in wardrooms, boardrooms and bedrooms; and finally to the mile-high palace in upstate New York where this king-maker and unmaker has reproduced an entire Swiss resort village, the Burgenstock. In all its splendid conivery this is the tale of America’s underside. West’s father, Paddy, fresh from Ireland makes his rapid way as shanghaier of sailors, bordello operator, saloon keeper to become New York City’s ward boss of bosses. Son Edward, lawyer, banker, gambling house proprietor, inherits much besides the West idea of welding gang to party and ruling both. But his most brilliant scheme is his own: the seduction of Big Business into support of legalized Temperance. Masterfully exploiting Prohibition through the illegal production and distribution of liquor, West not only amasses billions, he unleashes the most creative criminality the world has ever seen.
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But now there is a third generation. Walt, the liberal architect, who has never met his father and longs for him, accepts an invitation to visit mile-high luxury together with his new wife, the enchanting black painter Myra. The confrontation between these two young idealists and an old man menaced by his own despair and fear illumines the almost allegorical melodrama of an extraordinary novel.