Condominium

Literary fiction

First published: 1977
Print length: 557 pagesRandom House Trade Paperbacks, 2014

Description

John D. MacDonald’s Condominium centers on unscrupulous real-estate developers and the human cost of practices exposed by a hurricane. The storm is more than a backdrop: it brings decisions made for profit into direct contact with the people who must live with their consequences. As danger intensifies, the novel connects a large-scale natural disaster with the choices that made its effects more devastating. The result is both a disaster story and a critique of development without accountability, focused less on abstract wrongdoing than on the lives placed in jeopardy. Condominium asks what happens when commercial ambition meets a force that cannot be negotiated with or concealed.

Reading profile

About this profile

Collected’s assessment, not reader ratings. Complexity runs from 1 (least demanding) to 5 (most demanding).

Writing: How much attention the sentences and language require.
Ideas: How much interpretation or abstract reasoning the book asks of you.
Structure: How much you need to keep track of speakers, timelines and connections.
Background knowledge: Prior knowledge needed to follow the book, beyond what it explains.
Emotional intensity: Emotional pressure, from gentle (1) to intense (5). Separate from difficulty.

Writing style

Atmospheric · Descriptive · Direct

Pace

Variable

Tone

Dark · Satirical · Suspenseful · Tense

Structure

Linear

Focus

Character · Ideas · Plot

Emotional intensity

4 / 5

Reading complexity

1–5 · higher means more demanding

Writing: 3 / 5
Ideas: 3 / 5
Structure: 3 / 5
Background knowledge: 1 / 5

Themes

InequalityMoralityNature and environmentPowerSurvivalWealth

About John D. MacDonald

John D. MacDonald (1916–1986) was a prolific American writer of crime and suspense fiction, much of it set in his adopted home of Florida. He also wrote short stories and three science fiction novels. His education in business and economics informed fiction attentive to money, property, and professional knowledge, while his direct prose kept intricate plots moving. MacDonald is best known for the Travis McGee series, which he began in 1964 and made the main focus of his later career. McGee is an unconventional salvage consultant who recovers what ordinary institutions cannot, a role that lets MacDonald examine informal justice and its moral consequences. The Deep Blue Good-by establishes that pattern, while the standalone The Last One Left uses a yacht explosion and competing investigators to explore how suspicion grows when evidence remains elusive.

Book details

For the print edition listed above.

Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
Language: English
ISBN: 9780307827241, 9780812985306

Keep your books and notes in Collected for iPhone.

Apple Books is a service mark of Apple Inc. iPhone is a trademark of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries.