Rating: 
Summary: American Hero is a fictional (or non-fictional) masterpiece!
Review: I read Larry Beinhart's "American Hero" after seeing the Oscars. Wag the Dog looked like such a good and interesting movie, but my mom wouldn't allow me to go (I'm 14). I asked her if I could buy the book and read it, so she agreed, and I read it. It was the best book I have EVER read! I enjoyed the spine-tingling mystery and the suspense which kept me reading way past midnight most nights!! I also thought the way he tied himself into his own book was very clever. I know that the rating for books is up to 5 stars, but I think that "American Hero" deserves more...for creativity (or research)! You figure it out : did Pres. Bush really stage the Gulf War?
Rating:
Summary: American Hero is a fictional (or non-fictional) masterpiece!
Review: I read Larry Beinhart's "American Hero" after seeing the Oscars. Wag the Dog looked like such a good and interesting movie, but my mom wouldn't allow me to go (I'm 14). I asked her if I could buy the book and read it, so she agreed, and I read it. It was the best book I have EVER read! I enjoyed the spine-tingling mystery and the suspense which kept me reading way past midnight most nights!! I also thought the way he tied himself into his own book was very clever. I know that the rating for books is up to 5 stars, but I think that "American Hero" deserves more...for creativity (or research)! You figure it out : did Pres. Bush really stage the Gulf War?
Rating:
Summary: Nobody gets it
Review: If the author intended to or not, this turned out to be a greatbook. Whilst the two intertwined plotlines were radically obvious, Ithink the involvement of the clichéd PI part only added to the extravagance of the situation, and the outlandishness of Bush and Baker's involvement in the Gulf...
Rating: 
Summary: A Tale of Two Books
Review: Larry Beinhart's AMERICAN HERO is really two novels; a trenchant political satire and a by-the-numbers PI story. The story of Joe Broz and his Hollywood paramour was stricken with the same situations, relationships, developements and cliches (even a Kung Fu showdown, fer cryin' out loud) as a zillion other Private Detective novels. Nuff said. The other part of AMERICAN HERO, the shimmering Verasalles palace of the the book, is the tale of Lee Atwater's fevered public relations pitch, it's acceptance by George Herbert Walker Bush, and it's conception in the hands of Hollywood heavyhitter John Lincoln Beagle. In these chapters, Beinhart shines: exposing the stunning gullibility, mindless jingoism and political apathy of the American people. One wonders why he stopped short of describing the war itself, but since it is such a recent memory, the readers themselves can think back with embarrassment at how heartily we embraced that highly dubious military foray, with yellow ribbons, ticker tape parades, and a nintey percent approval rating for ole George Herbert Walker. Beinhart lets the chill run down our spines as we close the book and realize for ourselves that Atwater was right. We're a nation of suckers, tacitly complicent in our own duping. (LOVED THE FOOTNOTES!)
Rating: 
Summary: No ordinary mass market mystery
Review: Poor Larry Beinhart. He works really hard on his novels that no one buys. I haven't read his other works, but if American Hero is any indication, I suspect it's because he proffers an uneasy mix of thoroughly researched and thought-out polemics and run of the mill pulpy fiction. Most of American Hero is the story of a detective (cleverly named after a famous Communist leader) hired to protect a beautiful starlet who may have scraped the surface of a Hollywood-White House coproduction. Against all odds, Commie detective protects babe and has lots of sex. Beinhart intersperses the story with snippets of behind-the -scenes at the Bush administration, as well as footnotes to buttress the feeling that the conspiracy isn't that far-fetched. It's too bad Beinhart chose the shlocky, testosterone-fueled story as a vehicle for this project. His dialogue for George Bush and James Baker is utterly convincing--Beinhart mined a lot of magazine articles to research the demeaner and colloquialisms of our former national leaders. I imagine this is an extremely hard task, but Beinhart did it without making me wince once. As regards the Gulf War, at the core of this novel is a good Nation or Progressive article that Beinhart could have and should have written. This is a work that is deserving of a radical rewrite, where the story and characters are worthy of Beinhart's ideas, which are just instead grafted onto a typical scenario of sexy characters up against powerful forces. The result is a good read--hence my rating of a seven--but it could have been so much better.
Rating:
Summary: The beauty of irony
Review: The book is merely average but worth reading for the historical dimension it unintentionally provides. Originally written as fiction about Bush, it actually became reality for Clinton. The similarities are so striking that one wonders if Clinton's PR people swiped the plot for their strategy like silverware from the White House. The thinking is banal but it still works on the simple minded: continually accuse your opponent of every wrong that you are committing.
Rating:
Summary: Great political theory, too much pulp fiction
Review: The story of the war is great, it makes perfect sense, and you can really get caught up in it; but I found myself getting impatient as the book got more and more away from the politics, and more into the standard crime fiction. Things pick up at the very end, but I think it could have been even better if he carried the Bush-Baker plotline even further.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting, but a bit slow
Review: There are times when this novel is just bulging with fascinating concepts and I just can't put it down. Then there are times when I spend days trudging through a few pages because I don't want to read more than 2 at a time. Its worth buying and reading, but I didn't find anything truly earth shattering.
Rating:
Summary: An important novel by an under-rated writer
Review: There's something about _American Hero_ that pulls at the edges of the reader's mind: you will not turn a page without pausing to think, "Could this really happen? DID this really happen?" I'm a veteran of the Gulf War. I was there. I KNOW what I saw. And yet... _American Hero_ is putatively the novel on which the hit film "Wag the Dog" is based. A president intent on reelection, a film producer confronted with the biggest project ever, a war made for the screen. But however much Beinhart's opus depends on the world of film, that paradigm doesn't have enough dimension to capture the essence of _American Hero_ in return. You NEED to read this. The book is complex, heavily footnoted, and written in such a manner as to prove itself fact or fiction, whichever you prefer to believe. Chances are, you won't KNOW what to believe by time you read the final summation. Beinhart, whose other work (_You Get What You Pay For_, _Foreign Exchange_ and _No One Rides For Free_, as well as the non-fiction _How to Write a Mystery_) hasn't achieved the popularity it deserves, has delivered a masterpiece.
Rating:
Summary: An important novel by an under-rated writer
Review: There's something about _American Hero_ that pulls at the edges of the reader's mind: you will not turn a page without pausing to think, "Could this really happen? DID this really happen?" I'm a veteran of the Gulf War. I was there. I KNOW what I saw. And yet... _American Hero_ is putatively the novel on which the hit film "Wag the Dog" is based. A president intent on reelection, a film producer confronted with the biggest project ever, a war made for the screen. But however much Beinhart's opus depends on the world of film, that paradigm doesn't have enough dimension to capture the essence of _American Hero_ in return. You NEED to read this. The book is complex, heavily footnoted, and written in such a manner as to prove itself fact or fiction, whichever you prefer to believe. Chances are, you won't KNOW what to believe by time you read the final summation. Beinhart, whose other work (_You Get What You Pay For_, _Foreign Exchange_ and _No One Rides For Free_, as well as the non-fiction _How to Write a Mystery_) hasn't achieved the popularity it deserves, has delivered a masterpiece.
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