sometimes insane is the way to go

I was really grateful today that my boss wasn’t paying attention too closely when she breezed by my cube to ask me to order more legal pads while I was at lunch because she may have noticed that I was almost crying. Why was I almost crying? Because I was reading about five stoned Florida men arguing about whether or not bats have radar before they (the men, not the bats) set out to make a video of two of them spotting a made-up cryptid composed of a guy high on painkillers in a Dora the Explorer costume head so that one of them could sell t-shirts with misspelled words and two of the others could sell a reality show based on the fact that one of them was incredibly good-looking and the other one knows how to work a camera and edit videos.

But if that’s what you think Swamp Story is about, you would be wrong. There is so much more going on in this book. There is a singe mother accidentally discovering a cache of gold. There are brothers who own a beer and bait shop who don’t care about selling bait or selling beer but spend their time playing games on their phone and trying to come up with an idea for Shark Tank. There are some really bad guys, like drug dealers and killers and politicians. There is a champion snake catcher, and a frightening number of young adults going crazy because of things they have seen on TikTok. There are alligators and pythons and a boar who really needs to urinate. But most of all, there are Florida Men in the craziest, most iconic and hilarious way.

Swamp Story is the latest by Dave Barry, a genius with words who managed to win a Pulitzer Prize while writing mostly about boogers and exploding toilets (although that’s not what he actually won for). He is a Florida Man in his own right, and he has a unique way of bringing characters together that creates a special kind of chaos, humor, insanity, and inevitability to the page. And if you’re a longtime fan of his, as I am, then you will not be surprised that he not only brings up the song MacArthur Park, he also specifically mentions the line about the cake being left out in the rain.

I loved this book. I laughed, I cried (from the laughing), I was reminded once again of why I don’t want to go to Florida. But mostly I laughed, and I think that’s something most of us can use more of these days. So if you’re on the fence about Swamp Story, I hope this helps you decide about read this book. Just, maybe don’t read it at work.

Egalleys for Swamp Story were provided by Simon & Schuster, with many thanks.