The Propheteers [Hardcover]

Max Apple (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Howard Johnson and Walt Disney are both speeding toward Orlando to establish magic kingdoms, one restful, one frenetic. Margery Post Merriweather is already ensconced there, comfortably dreaming of her lost love Clarence Birdseye, and she doesn't need their companies. In Florida lurks Bones Jones, waiting to take out Disney, whom he blames for his own unanimated career. The showdown between Disney's rioting children and Margery's electric fence is a shocker. This "kindly satiric" fable about American prophets and profits, Apple's fourth book about pop culture, will amuse readers who can fancy Walt Disney a villain.Maurice Taylor, Brunswick Cty. Lib., Southport, N.C.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 306 pages
• Publisher: Harpercollins; 1st edition (February 1987)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060550562
• ISBN-13: 978-0060550561
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,000,021 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Horatian satire at its best (just don't tell Disney), December 26, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: The Propheteers: A Novel (Paperback)

This novel is a wonderfully luminous satire of American corporate shenanigans. The best-drawn satiric targets in this gallery are Howard Johnson, ice cream and hotel entrepreneur, and good old Uncle Walt Disney himself. This is not the Walt of "Hollywood's Dark Prince" to be sure, but it probably isn't the vision that the company that bears his name would necessarily want you to have, either. Walt comes off as an aloof visionary, the sort of absent-minded, kind-hearted genius that you might expect to find wandering about town, head in the air to admire the architecture while falling into open manholes. Leave it to his brother Roy (renamed Will here) to be the arch-capitalist pragmatist. Howard Johnson, on the other hand, is a visionary capitalist god, brimming with Zen energy. When Johnson surveys a map of the U.S., stippled with little orange dots to denote up-and-running HoJo Inns, and declares that "it is good", you might be tempted to accuse Apple of blasphemy, but you'd be missing the point. The novel is rife with satire on the American way, always witty, and never bitter. The prose is elegant and imagistic throughout, conjuring for the reader slick visions of contemporary Americana. The final image is among the most grotesque you're likely to find this side of Stephen King, but there's an awesome, glowing wonder about it that makes it unforgettable and surprisingly appropriate for a work that works very hard to avoid muckraking satire by holding onto a consistently light tone. It compares favorably with the best of Horace, the noble Roman whose name is synonymous with this brand of gentle satire, and it's a shame that Apple's works are not widely known. It's probably good for him, however, because it's doubtful Disney would have paid him a single cent for scripting the movie version of "Roommates" if they knew what Max had done with their founder! Highly recommended!