Free Agents

by Max Apple

This collection of stories features a freewheeling version of the creation of the Disney empire--young Walt liked to sketch little animals and his brother Will was a nascent Alexander the Great of entertainment--and a story about primal therapy and circumcision

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction

197 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1984

Reviews

[Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

Revisiting Max Apple and thoroughly enjoying it. For some reason - and to this day I have no I idea where they came from - as a small boy, on my bookshelf among The Hardy Boys Mysteries, Encyclopedia Brown, Peanuts, and Madeleine L'Engle, were copies of Donald Barthelme's SNOW WHITE and Max Apple's ORANGING OF AMERICA. For years, I could not make head or tales of either. Later, in my twenties, I began to sort of get Barthelme (which began a life-long love of his work), while falling entirely for Apple, earlier on. And then, unfortunately, I seem to have forgotten about the man.

FREE AGENTS is worth reading if only for the short story "Bridging," or say "The Eighth Day," a hilarious and possible precursor to the short work of Nathan Englander. But really what is on display here - aside from the trademark of his dry and lovely high satire - is his effortless ability to provide mini-American histories. Some of these stories read almost more like anthropological snapshots than anything else. I'm thinking of say "Walt and Will," a brief tour through the tumultuous rise and relationship of Apple's version of the famous Disney brothers, or say "Small Island Republics," an oddly convincing and barely humorous, but no less enjoyable for it, overtly political portrait of the complicated nature of race and what it is to be "American." Sometimes I'm reminded of Barthelme, a more generous version maybe, and sometimes I'm reminded of E. L. Doctorow. Either way, I'm happy to have made the re-discovery.

[Steven · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this a few times years ago, but today I picked it up to read "Bridging" because the idea of Max Apple as the leader of Girl Scout troop is just so absurd. Ended up reading several of the stories and was just impressed all over again with his ability as a satirist. He just totally skewers 1970's and 1980's America.

[Rick Seery · Rating 2 out of 5]

So, I finally got to read some Max Apple, whose The Oranging of America was celebrated by mid-20th century metafiction, short fiction kingpin Donald Barthelme.

The stories here are far more accessible than the infinitely stranger Barthelme variety. Apple's homely style recalls the superior Leonard Michaels, another peer of Barthelme's.

Stories I enjoyed: Blood Relatives, Momma's Boy and Child's Play.

A lot of it passed me, at best recalling the blithe style of Michaels, and seem very much of its time straddling the lanes between fiction and memoir. Some of the more 'clever' pieces bugged the hell out of me especially the egregious 'An Offering.'

The collection seems to be about the perils of being a parent, and the responsibilities of family, in late 20th Century America with an emphasis on income and other economic matters.

He's a good writer. It just all seems so cutesy.

[Blair · Rating 5 out of 5]

It took me sooo long to get my hands on this book. But it was absolutely worth the wait!! Pure Americana. The obsurd, the wild, the classic.