Thursday, December 24, 2009

Loren Singer, R.I.P.

Loren Singer, author of The Parallax View, died Saturday at the age of 86. Loren Singer, whose 1970 conspiracy thriller, “The Parallax View,” later made into a movie starring Warren Beatty, was one of the first novels to offer a politically paranoid vision of the United States as a country controlled by ruthless technocrats, died on Saturday in Valhalla, N.Y.

Mr. Singer, who picked up a few pointers on covert operations while training with the Office of Strategic Services during World War II, seized on the political assassinations of the 1960s as a starting point for “The Parallax View.” The main character, a newspaper reporter played by Mr. Beatty in the film, witnesses a presidential assassination and soon discovers that nearly all other witnesses to the event have been hunted down and killed.

Read the rest of the NY Times Obit HERE.

Hat Tip to Bill Crider

2 comments:

vallerose said...

I remember seeing the Parallax View when it first came out. It was one of the first to have the US run by a shadowy group against which no one could win. It also had an ambiguous ending. Needless to say, I have not forgotten it.

Mike Dennis said...

I never read the novel, but I did see the movie, and it was top-notch. I believe it was also one of Jim Davis' last movie roles.