SOURCE: Toman, Marshall. “The Political Satire in Joseph Heller's Good as Gold.” Studies in Contemporary Satire 17 (1990): 6-14.

In the following essay, Toman examines Heller's satirical treatment of the American neoconservative political program in Good as Gold.

Stephen W. Potts says of Joseph Heller's Good as Gold that “this satire shoots very wide, as with birdshot, aiming broadly at politics as an institution rather than at particular practices of the near past or the present.”¹ The criticism itself shoots wide, for neoconservative thought as it developed in the United States through the 1960s and 70s is the specific target. In The Neoconservatives, Peter Steinfels identifies important principles, at least four of which are objects of Heller's satire: (1) “neoconservatives refuse to put responsibility for the present situation heavily on the shoulders of governing elites”; (2) they view government as “the victim of ‘overload.’ Attempting too much, it has naturally failed”; (3) they...