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 the eyes of a beautiful, rich Parisian Jew and her beloved husband, an old-fashioned Prussian army general. What unfolds is and an almost unrelievedly bleak depiction of the rise of the Nazis and the Third Reich .

In spite of a few moments of typical Condonian gayness and insouciance, the overall tone of the book is of foreboding, incipient horror, and the impending doom of the Holocaust. After publishing four novels from 1958 through 1961, Condon was already widely known as the author of The Manchurian Candidate and was the subject of a so-called "Condon Cult". He then took three years to research the historical background of An Infinity of Mirrors and bring it to publication.

All of Condon's earlier books were replete with unexpected moments of violence and gratuitous death but none can compare with An Infinity of Mirrors' account of mass murder. Perhaps because of the unquestionably depressing nature of the book, it attracted less critical acclaim than his earlier works and did not noticeably expand the Condon Cult. The term "Holocaust" is not used in the book, as it was far less common in 1964, but Condon gives the reader an extremely grim picture of its origins and some of the practical details involved in its bureaucratic, yet evil, execution. The book was not a commercial success and, unlike three of his first four books, was never made into a film.

Condon's impetus for writing An Infinity of Mirrors is laid out in an excerpt from a letter from him that takes up the entire back dust cover of the first American edition. In it he writes:

The story of Hitler's nihilism—destruction for the sake of destruction—and the incongruity of Nazis occupying Paris—the Beast in the city of Beauty, as it were—have attracted me since the end of World War II.... What I wanted to say was that when evil confronts us in any form, it is not enough to flee it or to pretend that it is happening to somebody else. But though evil must be opposed, when it is fought with evil's ways it must ultimately corrupt and strangle the opposer.

Time magazine was not greatly impressed by Condon's latest offering and gave it a fairly cursory review:

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