The Oldest Confession | richard-condon

For its engrossing story, its coruscant wit, and its hair-raising drama, this new novel is a true literary discovery. The leading character is an American, James Bourne. Son of a millionaire, disgusted with the chicanery and hypocrisy of big business, he is determined that never again will he entangle himself in its meshes, and that he will lead a criminal life of a different sort.

His enterprise takes him to Spain. There he learns of numerous old masters Murillos, Velazquezs, Goyas and Zurbarans – hidden in inaccessible nooks of old castles and cathedrals where they have hung for generations. The opportunity is obvious. He engages the services of a master copyist and arranges to substitute the copies for the originals.

Sharing Bourne’s adventures – and his risks – is his wife Eve. No less inextricably involved however, are the Duchess of Dos Cortes, certainly the most fabulous Spanish aristocrat of modern fiction and her lover, Cayetano Jiminez, the premiere bullfighter of Spain. Involved too are the ineffable Dr Munoz, whose family, once enormously wealthy, has been impoverished by treachery, and the American art connoisseur Homer Pickett. The story unfolds against an intricately woven, enormously colorful and authentic background. It is told with the precision that can be likened to the perfect bullfight; for here are the wild excitement, the breathtaking suspense, the artistry of capework, the irony of the bull’s struggle and the moment of truth itself.

The Oldest Confession marks Richard Condon as a major writer. It is screamingly funny, it is deeply serious, it offers a reading experience which cannot be forgotten. This is his first novel and establishes him as a writer of maturity and literary excellence.

In 1955, Condon, then 40 years old and a longtime New York publicist and Hollywood employee of various studios, was the publicity agent for The Pride and the Passion, a film starring Frank Sinatra and Sophia Loren being shot in Spain. He was present at a scene being filmed in the ancient rectory of the Escorial, the massive palace and cathedral outside Madrid. The enormous lights needed to film the scene ...

"...revealed dozens upon dozens of great masterpieces of paintings that had not been seen for centuries, hung frame touching frame—the work of Goya, Velasquez, the great Dutch masters, and the most gifted masters of the Italian Renaissance.... The idea of masterpieces of Spanish painting hanging in stone castles all over Spain, high and invisible in the darkness, stayed with me and gradually formed itself into a novel called The Oldest Confession.”

Back in New York, Condon began turning his initial concept into a screenplay—until his wife pointed out, that he was writing it in the past tense instead of the present, which is obligatory for screenplays, and that it should be turned into a novel.

Condon followed her advice and the book was published to favorable reviews not long afterwards.

The movie version was released in 1962 as The Happy Thieves, starring Rex Harrison and Rita Hayworth.