The Book Corner: "Go, Mutants!"

 Larry Doyle is a former writer for "The Simpsons", in which capacity I'm sure that most of the people reading this have become familiar with his writing, whether they realize it or not. He also wrote the novel "I Love You, Beth Cooper", a very funny and perceptive piece of high school humor that won the Thurber Prize for American Humor... and the screenplay for the film version of the book, which got dreadful reviews (and which I never saw, as it never played any of the second run theatres in this area). In spite of the movie, not a bad resume. So I was looking forward to his new novel, "Go, Mutants!" And while it isn't exactly another "Beth Cooper", it's not bad.

The world of "Go, Mutants!" is very similar to the one we know... high school students still form cliques and torment those who aren't part of the "in" social circle. Those on the "outside" are desperately trying to get in. One big difference, though: many of those on the outside are aliens from some other planet, or mutants (some from Earth, some from the stars). Seems all those cheesy science-fiction alien invasion in the 1950's movies really happened, and now in the early 1970s, our high school students including among their numbers the children of marriages between alien beings and earthlings. Oh yeah, and the way the history of the world has developed since the 1950's is ALMOST the same as the one we know... but not quite exactly identical.

I generally have mixed reactions when authors who are well known for genres of writing other than science fiction and fantasy try their hand at those fields... too often, there seems to be an attitude that s.f.  is an "easy" genre that anyone can write. Well, too many good writers have proven that it isn't easy to write WELL. But Larry Doyle isn't really trying to write a traditional science-fiction novel as such, but rather a satire about teenage life (a field that, after "I Love You, Beth Cooper" he certainly knows well) with some science-fictional touches added... but remember, these are touches of the s.f. movies of the 1950s, which are not exactly the same thing as the literature. Doyle does occasionally try a little too hard, but for the most part he's created a very amusing slice of teen life the combines the 50s, the 70s and now, and shows how little difference there really is between all of them when you get right down to it. He's not so much satirizing the cheap s.f. movies (not an easy task) but the teen movies, and he succeeds.

I quite liked the little alternate history touches that he throws in, with for example Richard Nixon winning the presidency in 1960 but dying in a plane crash, JFK never being assassinated, and running for office in the early 1970's again with V.P,. candidate Marylin Monroe (remember, folks, this is NOT serious alternate history!). And I couldn't help chuckle about the Beatles being known instead as the Silvers (The Silver Beatles was one of their early names) with a line-up of John, Paul, George and Norman. And while you have seen enough scenes in teen stories of some poor character getting a "swirly", you have no idea how it can turn out when the poor character in question is a semi-liquid blob of gelatinous matter. Yeah, this isn't exactly intellectual material, but Doyle makes no bones about it being that. It's silly and proud of it, And when you take that attitude right from the start you can come up with some rather impressive sillyness.

The main hero of the story is one of those alien/human hybrids: his father was supposedly part of an alien invading force in the 1950s, and . this has influenced the ill-treatment the school has given him ever since. But he's determined not only to have a solid, long-lasting relationship with his completely human girlfriend, but also to be sure that alien rights get respected and that humans stop treating aliens and mutants as second class citizens. This might make it sound like there are some parallels with certain issues of racial relations in this novel, and you might very well be right. But it's probably best not to dwell on them for too terribly long, because that might make the book sound more serious and profound than it was intended to be.

"Go, Mutants!" isn't quite one of those classic humorous novels that have a big bellylaugh in every paragraph. But it does have a whole lot of smiles and chuckles on every page. If you ever looked at a movie like "Rebel Without A Cause" and wondered what it might have been like with space creatures in the roles played by James Dean, Natalie Wood and Sal Mineo, you'll finally have your answer in this book. Larry Doyle definitely has a very strange mind that works in very strange ways... and that's meant as a compliment. This book will probably become a movie one day too, but you should really check it out full strength before the movie dilutes it. Full strength is almost always the best way to absorb pure, undiluted sillyness.