Swamp Story

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.

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What’s Swamp Story About?

This is hard to summarize, really. Which is part of the beauty of the book.

Most of the characters in this book aren’t what you’d call likable. They’re not really villains or antagonists, they’re just…people you don’t want to spend time with in real life, people with more greed/ambition than common sense (or decency). There are a couple of guys living in a cabin in the Everglades trying to assemble enough footage for a reality show pilot (basically, the good-looking one of the pair walking around shirtless interacting with native wildlife). Their weed dealer owns a failing convenience store/bait shop and has a “so stupid it just might work” plan to put his family’s store on the map. There’s a would-be talent agent (or just anything to ride the coattails of his buddy who happens to make a little money). Oh, and there’s a lawyer and a cabinet secretary/presidential aspirant, too—can’t forget them.

On the villainous side, there’s the weed dealer’s supplier—a former football player who is still large enough to intimidate active linemen who will not tolerate missed deadlines. Two ex-con brothers who are the textbook definition of nasty are also running around. There’s also an Eastern European gangster and some of his employees from the old country who should make everyone quake with fear.

On the likable side, you have the shirtless would-be star’s girlfriend and mother of his child (who really regrets ever giving him the time of day, no matter how pretty he is). The weed dealer’s brother who really needs something to motivate him to do more than play games on his phone, might have found that motivation in her. You’ve also got a couple of aides to the secretary, who really need a better job. An alcoholic ex-reporter desperate to make a buck is just what the weed dealer wants for his idea. I can’t forget either the aging TV reporter desperate to cling to her former relevance or the champion snake hunter.

Put all these characters in a small geographic region, throw in a large amount of buried Confederate gold and a couple of viral videos, shake well, and serve. Swamp Story is the result.

This Book Could’ve Been Shorter

Around the 70% mark (I’m keeping it vague because I don’t know how it’ll go in the final edition), a couple of the characters have an exchange that essentially goes along these lines:

Character A: I hope nothing else happens.

Character B: What else could happen?

Character A: …

and then there’s a map showing the immediate vicinity and some of the major buildings/landmarks of the story, making it very obvious that, based on what we know, all the characters are really near each other and that the likelihood of them running into each other in the very near future is pretty high. The reader will not be able to look at this map and not start imagining how all that running into each other is going to go.

I made a note at this point, that Barry could’ve ended the novel at that point—that exchange, the map, and the reader’s imagination—and it’d have been a fun and satisfying read.

However, odds are, your imagination isn’t as good as Barry’s is (mine sure isn’t), and as zany as I thought things were going to get from this point, the truth was far zanier. His conclusion to the novel (not just the immediate every character and storyline coming together in one spot, but everything that followed) was better than any of the ideas I came up with (and I liked most of my ideas a lot).

Still, there’s part of me that wishes he’d left things with that line and the map. I’d have laughed hard at that.

So, what did I think about Swamp Story?

I really enjoy reading Barry’s novels, and Swamp Story is no exception. It’s a different kind of humor (largely) than Barry’s columns or books, but it’s just as satisfying. I’d want to say that it’s more subtle, but that’s not true at all. There’s more character-based humor, and some of it’s the dialogue—which strikes you differently than the straight humor pieces he’s best known for.

Now, that said, there’s a scene at the beginning—involving a rich child’s birthday party, a couple of costumed performers, and a difficult-to-crack piñata, that absolutely cracked me up and I’ve been replaying it in my head since I read it—it’s perfect slapstick.

Putting aside the humor, all the story arcs worked really well and I can see toned-down versions of all the arcs working well together in a grim version of this story. I’ve argued recently that a good test of a comedic novel is if the plots would work without the laughs—in this case they largely wood. But they’re so much juicer and more enjoyable in this comic and heightened versions.

There are genuine bad guys, some actual threats, several characters in search of a good idea,* and a couple of people you hope catch a lucky break and escape from everything they’re surrounded by relatively intact. Throw in some good laughs, and some clever writing, and you’ve got yourself a fun few hours of reading. That’s likely what the reader looks for in a Dave Barry novel, and that’s what Swamp Story delivers. Strongly recommended.

* Apologies to Pirandello.