We love "Mile High" for its sweeping scope and ambition........it reads like a sly, tongue-deeply-in-cheek version of a Great American Novel, rich in historical research and spanning decades of American events and real people.....(Al Capone, Warren Harding, just to name a few....)
Throughout the epic tale, Condon never lets you forget that he's both a clever joker and a raging pundit.......once again depicting a vast panorama of an American populace manipulated, hoodwinked, and herded like cattle by its wealthy and powerful leaders.
Imagine "Citizen Kane" re-conceived as a psychological thriller and you might get an idea of what this is like.....
Eddie West, the young son of a powerful, behind-the-scenes political puppetmaster in New York, dreams up a staggeringly outrageous idea.......Eddie conspires to push the country into Prohibition in 1920, while secretly building up his own vast criminal empire in illegal liquor distilling and sales.......(and thereby single-handedly creating and controlling Mafia gangsters.)
In essence, Eddie plays the United States populace for suckers......and in doing so, forever splits the country's soul in half.......between the America of the highest moral ideas and the America of dark impulses....greed, violence racism and depravity.
Eddie West, power broker supreme, becomes Condon's living symbol of a country turned into a warped version of its supposedly benevolent self......
And if that isn't frightening enough for you, Eddie himself plunges deeper into the violent psychosis inherited from his father, subjecting women in his orbit (including his wife) to rape and near fatal beatings.
It all makes for a breathtaking read, sometimes horrifying, sometimes deftly funny....(but not, we should point out, a fast-paced experience......you may have to slow down a bit to absorb Condon's voluminous, detailed research)....
And honestly, we still don't know what to make of the book's relatively brief final section......in which Condon turns the final chapters of Eddie's saga into an all-out scary-as-hell suspense thriller. (Eddie's youngest son Walt unwisely brings his beautiful black fiance to his father's spectacular estate in the New York State forests........a lair worthy of a James Bond supervillian. By this time the aged Eddie is utterly deranged, homicidal, and consumed with racial hatred at the sight of his prospective daughter-in-law....)
Though these chapters close out "Mile High" like an extended practical joke with multiple punchlines,(including a final line satire of 'Citizen Kane's 'Roseboud' moment), it's still remains a superbly incisive book for us........Condon long ago sounded warning bells about politicians and the Power Elite, It took us way longer than him to view these 'leaders' with the distrust, suspicion and loathing they deserve.......and now we're stuck with a Condon character come to life as President, a true Manchurian Candidate in every sense, a fascist, racist dunce whose strings are easily pulled by the darkest forces in the world.
You may not figure out whether you should smile or painfully grimace through "Mile High"....(we did both equally).......however it strikes you, BQ says it's a 4 star read...(****) dive in and prepare for a wild, unsettling ride.
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