The Perfect American
Did the man who created Mickey Mouse really have a strong, racist hostility for African Americans or an almost McCarthy-esque hatred of Communism? According to Wilhelm Dantine, narrator of this fictionalized biography of Walt Disney's final years, these and other dark traits fill out the true character of the great cartoonist, making the titleThe Perfect Americanan ironic, backhanded slap at Disney's legacy. Yet Dantine, a former Disney studio animator with an admitted "dependency on a drug called Walter Elias Disney," is himself a tortured man and on a lifelong mission to avenge his premature firing after he made major contributions to the classicSnow White and the Seven Dwarfs.In a scene worth the book's price, Dantine finally confronts Disney with his planned tirade of accusations, and the results completely surprise him. At turns fascinating and comical, Jungk's novel hews so closely to well-researched biographical data that the line between fact and fiction often becomes blurred. An interesting companion piece to existing Disney biographies, one that may start readers searching for the real Walt.Carl HaysCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved