Everything you need to understand or teach Prizzi's Honor by Richard Condon.
The near-infinite ability we have for deluding ourselves is a thematic strand never far below the surface of Prizzi's Honor. Time and time again, people go to the most extraordinary lengths to convince themselves that the obvious will not happen: The mystical significance of blood ties is invoked as a means of shutting out the knowledge that relatives are untrustworthy; children are loved so irrationally that their unchecked impulses threaten their parents' survival...