Sharp as a razor: The Perfect American says more about Disney, and the seduction of megalomania, than a stack of biographies.
And, no, there’s absolutely no weighted meaning in that title.
While it would be next to impossible to find a subject who came to a book with more symbolic heft attached to him than Walt Disney, as a character the man seems relatively unrepresented in literature and film. Doing quite the fine job of changing that fact is Jungk (Franz Werfel: A Life in Prague, Vienna and Hollywood, 1990), who takes on the dream-maker himself in his utterly irascible and unpleasant old age. At the opening here—of a novel whose title is almost as fraught with significance as Disney himself—the old man has gone back in 1966 to the tiny town in Missouri where he and his brother Roy were born and from whence came the inspiration for the layout of the Disney theme parks. Roy was the one who was good with the money, not the ideas like Walt. Of course, the great open secret of Walt’s life is that he didn’t really do much of the concrete work that made his name known in the farthest corners of the world—he just hired the best of the best, put them on a short leash, and slapped his name on their product. This is a point driven home again and again by the story’s resident neurotic Wilhem Dantine. An Austrian-born cartoonist (and real-life figure), Dantine worked for Walt for many years, getting fired just after the relatively disappointing performance of Sleeping Beauty, which Dantine had worked on. Years later, Dantine is practically a wandering vagrant with not much more to do than follow Walt around in an attempt to confront him (it’s a sublime moment when Dantine finally manages to butt heads with Walt in person). More like fictionalized biography than straight fiction, Jungk’s book is a fine achievement, making such a remote, brilliant, and rather hateful Walt Disney a flawed and painfully human creation.
Sharp as a razor: The Perfect American says more about Disney, and the seduction of megalomania, than a stack of biographies.Pub Date: June 1, 2004
ISBN: 1-59051-115-8
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Handsel/Other Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2004
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
