Goodbye Mickey Mouse – Len Deighton, 1982
★★½ (out of five)
The
difficulty of writing historical fiction often lies in getting facts straight. For
Len Deighton, a former RAF pilot as well as an avid chronicler of World War II
in both fiction and non-fiction form, authenticity was not a challenge for this
tale of American Army Air Force fighter pilots in England. Goodbye Mickey Mouse is solid there.
But
you need more than authenticity to make a novel click. You need an engaging
plot and lively characters. It’s there the novel sagged for me.
If
we can’t call this Shakespeare’s bitchiest play, that’s only because we don’t
quite know how much of Henry VI, Part I
is his. Otherwise, this is a bitchfest in two ways: A vast array of
interchangeable characters bicker with one another from first scene to last;
and you have one of Shakespeare’s most reprehensible female villains, Joan of
Arc.
When
it comes to America’s forgotten battles, Vietnam and Korea have nothing on the
Spanish-American War. Despite an unprecedented territorial yield, our country’s
first multi-ocean conflict receded from memory long before its last
acknowledged American veteran died in 1992. Fighting two world wars over the
next 50 years can do that.
Brighton Rock – Graham Greene, 1938
High Treason – Robert J. Groden & Harrison Edward Livingstone, 1989
Goodbye Mickey Mouse – Len Deighton, 1982
MAD Strikes Back! – Harvey Kurtzman, 1955
Bullet Park – John Cheever, 1969