Prizzi's Honor [Hardcover]

The story opens at the wedding of a Mafia don's granddaughter. One of the don's lieutenants, Charley Partanna is instantly smitten with a beautiful woman who appears unexpectedly at the wedding. She quickly disappears, and he tries to find her. His search leads him to California from New York. He finds that she is married, but separated. He falls deeply in love with her. Imagine his chagrin when he dispatches a crook who has stolen from his crime family . . . and the crook turns out to be the woman's estranged husband. What's worse, hundreds of thousands of dollars are still missing. Fortunately, it's insured. But that's not the point. You cannot let people steal from a crime family. What should Charley do now?

What obligation does Charley owe to the don? What does he owe to the don's family, the Prizzis? What does he owe to someone he loves? What does he owe to his own father (who also works for the Prizzis)? What does he owe to himself and his own sense of self respect?

The story is even more complicated by the overhanging debt of honor that the Prizzis owe to Charley. Earlier, another granddaughter had run off to live with another man while engaged to Charley. As a result, she is cut off from the family. She cannot be reconciled with her family until Charley finally marries. That will release that debt of honor.

Charley Partanna is a Don Quixote-like figure who is very concerned with what honor requires. Although the rest of the characters of often speak as though they do too, they really focus on what's best for their wealth and survival. But Charley overlays the concept of honor on them, despite the evidence to the contrary. This makes him a very appealing character for someone who is a remorseless contract killer, enforcer, kidnapper, and general on-call criminal. Perhaps Mr. Condon's message is that we can all aspire to the Heavens, no matter how debased our lives and sins are.

The realities of honor in these situations come down to sovereign power more than to any real codes of honor, in the sense that chivalry was a code of honor. The "deal" keeps changing, and Charley finds himself one minute on the same side as another person and then opposing that person in the next minute due to a ploy by someone else or changed circumstances.

The conclusion will strike you as unexpected in the extreme unless you think carefully about the title. The denouement is a neat resolution of the escalating conflicts brought on by the complication of Charley's falling in love with a woman whose interests are not the same as those of the Prizzis.

After you finish enjoying the story, I suggest that you think about what you own code of ethics would tell you to do if you had these sorts of conflicts in your life. Hopefully, such conflicts in loyalties will never occur. But such advance thinking can probably help you avoid misplacing your trust and support, should you run into these conflicts.

May you always seek out the honorable solution!

Then, there is the second type, which, judging by descriptions by former real mobsters like Sammy the Bull, portrays a more realistic world where the mobster's dirty business is nothing but glamorous.

If one wants to believe in the mob as a flashy world where somehow ethics and shaking down mom and pop businesses coexist, this book is perfect. If one is truly interested in how the mob is really run, I'd suggest Goodfellas or Casino.