Lunatics, (Chapters 1-16)

I have long been an admirer of Dave Barry and his signature style of humor.  This book is full of his amazing wit, though necessarily tempered by a nicely developed plotting and writing style which, presumably, can be attributed to his co-author, Alan Zweibel.  I say “necessarily” because, like a too-rich dessert, Barry’s humor can be cloying in large doses.  His short essay-like expositions found in the newspaper are the perfect length.  Reading more than five of those in a row is simply too much of a good thing. 

In smaller doses, though, his humor has an appealing Mad-magazine-on-steroids zing that takes his readers by surprise and has us laughing out loud before we realize we’re going to.  Compact quips, such as in this book, describing a very angry man thusly, “His face turned the color of Hawaiian Punch,” are Berry’s stock in trade, and perfect for a fast-paced, tightly plotted novel such as this. 

The pace is surprisingly brisk, with the action unfolding almost faster than we can keep up.  But we don’t get the idea that this is done to disguise the fact that the story is short on substance.  In fact, there is an abundance of social commentary here, about racism, husband/wife relationships, environmentalism, and much more.  The balance between depth and pace is very impressive, but there’s no time to savor it; the book almost demands a re-reading, even at the first quarter mark. 

Pausing to catch your breath, one realizes, for instance, that this is a fascinating study in collaborative writing.  One can’t help but wonder about the process that the authors used to bring this result about.  Was it entirely a brain-storming session, with the ideas coming fast and furious?  Did they take turns, passing the manuscript back and forth, refining one another’s ideas over a longer period of time?  Did they spend as much time laughing at each other’s wackiness as we would have if we had watched the process in action?  Whatever approach they eventually hit upon, whether sooner or later, it works magnificently! 

It is tempting to assume, because the chapters alternate exactly one-to-one between the two very different main characters, that each author took a character to represent and took turns writing the chapters.  But even if the authors began with this idea, there seems to be too much consistency of style from chapter to chapter.  Yes, they could have gone over it after the fact and eliminated the rough edges that might have resulted; and yet, my instinct tells me it wasn’t that cut and dried.  One character cusses like a sailor (even though his wife admonishes him to watch his language in front of their daughter) and the other apologizes for a slightly off-color phrase.  The characters are each very consistent in their personalities; yet I hear Dave Barry’s “voice” throughout, as well as a strong counter-voice that rings true page by page.  And I expect this will prove to be a consistent aspect throughout the book.



Next segment, Chapters 17-32