Will Byrnes's Reviews > Swamp Story

Pinky arrived punctually and silently in a highly modified Tesla equipped with bulletproof glass, a sound system that could liquefy granite and a front seat customized to accommodate Pinky’s body, which weighed a tad over 430 pounds and measured nearly the same horizontally as vertically. Pinky, whose real name was Bob Kearful, had once been a standout nose tackle at the University of Florida and probably would have gone to the NFL had it not been for a crucial play in the Florida-Georgia game during which he bit off the little finger of a Georgia offensive guard and refused to spit it out. This conduct was deemed so unsportsmanlike that Pinky was permanently banned from the game, though it also earned him his nickname and the undying affection of Gator fans.

Florida Man re-appears after years away as a novelist, having written an incredibly funny book! Police bring him in for questioning.

Ok, let’s play Sunshine State Bingo

Rednecks with weapons, minimal brain cells, and dreams of gold – of course

Foreign-born gangsters with access to tech, and no access to decency – I am shocked, shocked

A crooked lawyer with expensive tastes and a serious gambling habit – no, never

A sleazy politician with White House ambitions and zero scruples – In Florida? Surely you jest.

An uber-vain stud-muffin with an uncontrtollable desire to doff his shirt for the camera, and zero desire to care for or protect his wife and child – a vanishing breed, I expect. Probably the last of his kind.

A group of internet-star wannabees who, while in various states of intoxication from alcohol and diverse other substances, concoct a plot to fake a monster sighting to boost business – oh, that never happens

A former news anchor reduced to covering things like the annual Florida Python challenge – not a happy camper. There were fewer opportunities in the time before blogs became de rigeur for the unwillingly unemployed media crowd

A nice guy who wants to be with the girl – Stop right there. Who let the normie in? Well, the male normie.

Snakes – Yep, and snakes were intended to have been even more of a presence

Originally this book was going to be much snakier. Then I had breakfast with Carl [Hiaasen], and he had just finished writing “Squeeze Me.”
I said, what’s it about? And he said, it’s in Palm Beach and there are pythons. I said, are there a lot of pythons in it? And he said yes.
So in “Swamp Story” the missing Confederate gold treasure buried in the Everglades sort of replaced the pythons in the plot. - from the Tampa Bay Times interview

Gators – wouldn’t be a Florida novel without ‘em

A wild boar comfort pet – Wait, what?

Fictitious swamp monsters - you betcha

Buried Treasure – as noted above. Bet you didn’t have that one.



Dave Barry - image from Literary Hub

We meet Slater as he is struggling to videotape the mother of his child, and the child, as they are attacked by a giant python. But hold on, will ya, while we replace the camera batteries. It’ll only be a sec. The man lives for footage, preferably footage that includes his impressive torso but footage of his gf and baby being devoured by a giant reptile would also be pretty cool, don’t ya think?

He wore a filthy pair of cut-off University of Florida sweatpants, nothing else. Yet he still looked better than 99.999 percent of all human males who had ever walked the Earth. He was strikingly handsome in a classic Tom Cruise—in–his–prime way—thick, jet-black hair; brilliant green eyes; high cheekbones; square jaw. He was tall, a foot taller than Cruise, and his body, despite the fact that he never seemed to do anything for it, was spectacular—lean, muscular and sculpted, the body of an elite athlete in peak condition.

Jesse knows she is in a dead-end relationship, but had not thought that would mean literally dead. As fortune would have it, though, during one of her walks with Willa, her nursing baby girl, fathered unfortunately by a narcissist who wants to be known as Glades Man, she stumbles across a buried treasure. Thank you, Jesus, a ticket out of the swamp version of bum-fu#$-nowhere. But how to go about getting the bars somewhere safe, and figuring out how to cash them in?

Who inspired Slater?

There are a lot of Slater-like guys in Miami. There are large sections, a whole community of people who are all about looks, about appearance. Looks are very important in this town.
So he’s just the distilled essence of a million guys walking around admiring their own beauty
That’s the essence of Slater — to the people who are into reality TV, nothing is as important to them as this fake thing, reality TV, and now TikTok as well. They never experience anything for itself, it’s always, how can I use this to get myself on the internet, on people’s phones?
- from the Tampa Bay Times interview

The Bortle brothers, owners of Bortle Brothers Bait & Beer, make their primary living selling weed, beer being in short supply, somehow, and the bait being maybe 50% dead. The loo could use a cleaning this millennium, too. They decide to make a video of a fake monster to draw the curious and idiotic, both groups known to spend money on things like Monster Man T-shirts. These guys sure know how to dream big. If you film it, they will come. And, of course, it happens. Their video goes viral, and the earth tilts on its axis, dumping the most loosely connected to the planet to the Everglades.

Most of your books have been nonfiction, and your most recent novel for adults, “Insane City,” was published 10 years ago. What moved you to write another novel?
I do mostly nonfiction, but every now and then I switch to fiction. I always have a lot of ideas bouncing around in my head
A while ago I wrote this book, a nonfiction book, called “Best. State. Ever.” To research it I went to all these tourist attractions, but not the big ones, the little roadside attractions. I went to this one, the Skunk Ape museum, and it just sort of stuck in my mind.
I was walking around out in the Everglades with this guy, Dave Shealey. He’s the guy who saw the Skunk Ape and is selling the T-shirts.
I just kept thinking about this whole society existing out in the Everglades with this mythical monster out there. It just kept bouncing around in my mind as something you could write a story about.
- from the Tampa Bay Times interview

Now, about that gold. Everyone who is aware of it wants it, and that consists of mostly terrible people.

Dave Barry weaves all these upstanding individuals together, or maybe just tosses them into a blender. You know they will all come together for a rousing climax. Barry does not disappoint.

Will the Interior Secretary manage a successful launch of the Florida Python Challenge? Hmmm, I wonder. Where will the gold end up? Will Jesse escape with Willa to some sort of sane life? Will Slater become famous for his bod? Will the Bait & Beer make a killing selling tourist crap? Will sundry extreme criminals come to bad ends?

If you are looking for anything serious here, you are in the wrong swamp. If, however, you enjoy laughing until it hurts, this might just be the place for you. I lost count of the “LOL” notes in my Word file.

Slip on your bathing suit, slather on bug repellant, a LOT of bug repellant, take a few steps forward. The swamp water is cool and inviting. But if you see eyes looking back at you from the surface, you might want to step back up onto the the land, waaaay back, and make sure to look up, in case something large and hungry might be about to drop down on you from a Cypress tree.

Whether you take the opportunity to read Swamp Story near a beach, a pool, a comfy chair at home or in your favorite swamp, Dave Barry is one Florida Man you will want to spend some time with this summer.

Ken Bortle was standing in the parking lot behind the Gallo Grande, waiting next to an overflowing dumpster baking in the late-afternoon Miami sun, emitting near-visible stench rays.

Review posted - 7/14/23

Publication dates
----------Hardcover – 05/02/23
----------Trade paperback - 05/07/24

I received an ARE of Swamp Story from Simon & Schuster in return for a fair review, and a lead on some prime Florida real estate. Thanks, folks, and thanks to NetGalley for facilitating.




This review will be cross-posted on my site, Coot’s Reviews, once I make bail. Stop by and say Hi!

=============================EXTRA STUFF

I have been to the Everglades, but not quite the neck of those woods Barry describes. The wild creatures I spotted included gators, but along with that, many less alarming critters. These include a totally adorable Big Cypress Fox Squirrel, anhingas, blue, green, and tricolored herons, (somehow missed the polka-dot variation) pelicans, et al. Did not see any snakes. Of course, this was in 2012, so there may have been a much lesser presence then, Trump was still living on 5th Avenue and DeSantis had yet to be elected. I posted some shots from that trip on Flickr, if anyone is interested.

Profile - from Simon & Shchuster
Dave Barry is the author of more bestsellers than you can count on two hands, [unless you have very unusual hands] including Lessons from Lucy, Dave Barry’s Complete Guide to Guys, Dave Barry Turns Forty, and Dave Barry Is Not Making This Up. A wildly popular syndicated columnist best known for his booger jokes, Barry won the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for commentary. He lives in Miami.

Links to Barry’s personal, FB, Instagram, and Twitter pages, and his blog

His FB page is clearly only lightly maintained

Interviews
-----The Poisoned Pen- An Interview with Dave Barry by Michael Barson - thin
-----Tampa Bay Times - Dave Barry talks about his new novel, ‘Swamp Story’ by Colette Bancroft
-----Saturday Evening Post - 3 Questions for Dave Barry by Jeanne Wolf

Items of Interest from the author
-----ScubaBoard.com - Dave Barry on Diving
-----Wanderings - Dave Barry Learned All This in 50 Years

Items of Interest
-----The Florida Python Challenge
-----University of South Florida - A python invasion has exploded out of the Everglades
-----Bored Panda - 60 Times Florida Man Did Something So Crazy We Had To Read The Headings Twice - Better strap yourself in if you do not want to be rolling on the floor

Songs
----- The Beachboys - Be True to your School - Chapter 20
-----The Beachboys - Don’t Worry Baby - great song, but a bit painful to watch – Chapter 20
-----Grease - Summer Nights - Chapter 46
-----Grease Live - Look at Me I’m Sandra Dee - Chapter 46