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The Big Blow-Out
Tim Dorsey’s Atomic Lobster is weapons-grade wildness
By John Hood
 Hard
not to dig a book that begins with a 91-year-old woman admitting
she had sex twice the night before, despite the “eww!” factor;
after all, why shouldn’t she get some too? Even harder not to
dig a book where the blue-hair in question says said sex was
“better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick,” then tells
us to “go get [our] own.”
But that’s the kick we get from one Edith Grabowski in Tim
Dorsey’s Atomic Lobster (Morrow, $24.95), and it’s the
kinda kick that keeps on kicking. In fact, dame Edith even warns
us that her semi-swift kicks were nothing compared to what went
down on the cruise upon which we’re about to embark, a steaming
that consists of “people falling overboard, stampedes in
the casino, fires, explosions, dead bodies, drunk tourists,
gouging eyes over life preservers, and the whole boat nearly
sinking, not to mention a secret agent named Foxtrot.”
And not to mention a subcontinental op who slays by the name
Serge A. Storms. See, he’s at the center of this maelstrom. So’s
his untrusting sidekick Coleman, who never met a drug he didn’t
wanna do at least thrice, preferably back-to-back and on top of
another. Then there’s Edith herself, de facto leader of the
so-called E-Team, which rounds out with biddy-buddies Edna,
Eunice and Ethel, and also has the dubious nom de guerre
G-Unit (as in Granny). And if the granny gang, the badass and
the ugly aren’t enough for you, well, there’s always the
obligatorily evil femme fatale Rachael, and little Johnny Vega,
the Accidental Virgin, who just can’t seem to, er, make it home.
If you’ve dared any of Dorsey’s other long plays (which began
with Florida Roadkill and last struck sand with
Hurricane Punch), then you’ll know the cat not only writes
with a wild even The Everglades couldn’t contain, but does so
with an abandon that fabled swamp would welcome — and, in fact
has, if the number of bodies that wind up dumped in its mucky
stomach is any indication.
But almost anyone can catalogue our great state’s kookiest
characters; it takes a cunning soul to make ’em speak in
sing-song, let alone in story. Dorsey’s that cat. As always, I
won’t tell you what you’re in for (buy the book, dammit!), but I
will say that what you’re in for could leave you done for if
you’re not very, very careful. Actually, scratch that, ’cause
careful’s for sissies who like nets when they go high wire, and
this mad act has nothing of the sort.
I gave Dorsey 10 quick either/ors and the crime scribe seemed
rather uninspired by my gimmickry. Here goes:
Mike Shayne (Brett
Halliday’s mid-20th-century
Miami
P.I.) or Hoke Mosley (Charles Willeford’s bunglingly adept cop
in
Sideswipe, Miami Blues and New Hope for the Dead)?
Hoke.
Tony Rome (a houseboat-based investigator of sorts, created by
Marvin Albert in
Miami Mayhem and played by Frank Sinatra) or Travis
McGee (John D. McDonald’s infinitely deeper literary-pulp
counterpart)?
Travis.
Cane or Dexter?
Cane.
Vice or CSI?
Vice.
Alligator Alley or Tamiami Trail?
Tamiami.
I-95 or
U.S.
27?
U.S.
27.
Ybor
City
or Little
Havana?
That's tough. I absolutely love Little Havana and Calle Ocho,
but Ybor's in my hometown, so I have to stay there.
Stiltsville or
South
Beach?
Stiltsville!
Weeki Wachee or Silver Springs?
Another tough one. No, more than tough. They're both what
Florida's really all about.
Disney or Flagler?
Flagler all the way to
Key West.
Tim Dorsey reads from
Atomic Lobster at
8 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 6, at Books and Books, 265 Aragon Ave.,
Coral Gables. For more information, call 305-442-4408.
Comments? E-mail
letters@miamisunpost.com. |
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