Rating: 4/5
Review:
Enjoyable satire
I enjoyed The Great American Cheese War. It is a clever satire on
right-wing conspiracy theorists, the way they may influence gullible
politicians and provoke conflict for their own ends,
The story is, in
essence, rather familiar from real life but here made absurd because
the fabricated “threat” and subsequent conflict is between
neighbouring US states and is over cheese. A dim, incompetent
governor of Michigan, in post because he is the son of the state’s
richest man, is manipulated by a ludicrously absurd conspiracy theory
into launching “pre-emptive” attacks on Wisconsin. (As one
character says, “It had to be [absurd] or the Tea Party wouldn’t
have believed it.”) Private militias and his father’s big
private security company become involved as it all spirals out of
control.
It is clever, witty,
scarily timely and sometimes painfully near the knuckle. I didn’t
find it laugh-out-loud funny as some others have done and there are
some aspect which I was less happy about – the pantomime farce
involving the Police Chief rather blunted the satire, for example –
but it’s a very enjoyable read. Recommended.
(My thanks to
Farrago for an ARC via NetGalley.)
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