Book Review: Big Trouble by Dave Barry

Former humor columnist Dave Barry has amassed quite a devoted fan club over the years. This comes not only from his Miami Herald pieces, but the series of hilarious books compiled from his best columns.

In September of 1999, Barry published his first official work of fiction, Big Trouble, a blatant send-up of thriller and mystery novels (especially those of present-day authors, such as Janet Evanovich and Sue Grafton). On the one hand, like his nonfiction work, of course, it contains a heaping tablespoon of hysterical, outlandish humor. On the other, it contains some scenes of intense violence, touching romance, and an Urban Dictionary's worth of four-letter words, racial slurs, and sexual slang.

Barry makes no bones about the content of his novel, and gives readers fair warning of this in the foreword. Acknowledging that many younger readers had been fans of his humor column, he says, "...this book is not for them, because some of the characters use Adult Language. I did not necessarily want the characters to use this type of language; some of them just went ahead and did." As any skilled author knows, characters just have a tendency to do this on their own.

The Plot (If It Can Be Explained)

The plot of Big Trouble is, from the outset, insanely complex and (hopefully) improbable. That said, some of the characters and settings seem, at least partially, inspired by Barry's real-life experiences in Miami.

The majority of the action takes place in Coconut Grove, a neighborhood in the city of Miami, Florida. Coconut Grove is home to a hardworking but as yet unsuccessful advertising agent named Eliot Arnold. Arnold, on the drive home after a meeting with the Client From Hell (his real name), receives a call from his teenage son, Matt, asking if he can borrow the car because (and I quote) "Me and Andrew have to kill a girl." Upon further explanation, it is revealed that this is part of a completely innocent high school game called Killer, in which students plot to "assassinate" one another with water guns.

Matt's intended target is a beautiful and popular girl named Jenny Herk (upon whom he has a major crush). Jenny and her mother, Anna, are just sitting down to what they hope will be a relaxing evening of watching TV. Enter Arthur Herk, Anna's abusive, alcoholic, misogynistic husband (and Jenny's stepfather), whose character is established immediately by his denigrating comments toward the family, and his unwelcome sexual advances toward the live-in maid, Nina.

Little does the Herk family know that a much more sinister surprise lies in wait, lurking in the shadows outside their home.

What follows is a chaotic chain of events that might best be described as "Tom Clancy and Vivian Chern Meet the Marx Brothers." Though it isn't a mystery in the traditional sense, it certainly wouldn't be fair to spoil the rest of the plot.

Critique and Analysis

Enthusiasts of Barry's humor columns may have read his occasional forays into "fiction," though those brief fictional works were, in some ways, even less serious than Big Trouble.

Perhaps the piece that comes closest is Barry's "MsPtato and RayAdverb: A Story of Love Online," a humorous (and yet semi-serious) tale of two married adults who "meet" in an online chat room.

The place where that story and Big Trouble cross paths is the overall tone Barry constructs with both. On the surface, "MsPtato" is a mockery of online chat rooms in general, and the lack of intelligence and sophistication found therein. Upon reflection, however, there is a sense of melancholy to the story, as the two main characters are genuinely lonely adults trying to cope with a world that is outgrowing them (especially with regards to technology). Not all of Barry's readers may look at it this way; of course, that's the fun of literature.

Big Trouble, likewise, takes a cast of fictitious characters and, in Barry's ingenious style, makes them seem real.

Eliot Arnold, for example, could be the archetypal divorced American dad, trying to make ends meet in a world intent on preventing that, whatever the cost.

His son, Matt, is your everyday American teenager who, in a life-threatening situation, shows a reserve of bravery and strength that perhaps he doesn't even realize exists.

Anna Herk, too, seems like your typical disillusioned, wealthy suburban mom, until petrifying circumstances force her to go above and beyond that role.

Granted, many of the events that take place in Big Trouble may have seemed improbable at one time, but after such real-life tragedies as the Sept. 11th terrorist attacks or the mass murder at Columbine High School, people have come to realize that sometimes their worst nightmares do

Now, this isn't to say that Barry's book is all drama and no comedy; if that were the case, it simply wouldn't be him. Rather, with the action divided into chapters (as most novels are), Barry quickly alternates between the funny and the frightening. Those used to his humor columns, nonetheless, may be in for a bit of shock.

There is even one passage so shockingly heartless, so filled with the threat of death or worse, that it may wipe the grin (elicited from the previous chapter) off your face. Then again, those used to books like American Psycho will probably find it tame.

While there aren't clearly defined "heroes" and "villains" at the book's beginning, as things progress, there are likely several characters you'll come to despise. And if anything can be said about a writer, one who has the ability to create truly "hate-worthy" characters definitely has a knack for storytelling.

It should be noted that Barry, in the preface entitled "Acknowledgements and Warning," includes among his list his research assistant, Judi Smith, who answered such questions (according to Barry) as, "How much milk does an average Tahitian coconut contain?" While reading the book, it may become apparent, in certain chapters, where Smith's work came into play. There are a number of complex concepts within the story, particularly concerning (without spoiling too much) organized crime, Florida politics, corporate corruption, and other issues.

The above issues are somewhat incidental to the story, and aren't really part of the point, per se. Barry, however, manages to satirize not only the mystery/crime genre, but airports, newspapers, sportscasters, advertising agencies, cops, marriage and relationships, the elderly, and Jerry Springer, just to name a few. Even those readers who have never actually set foot in Florida will get a feeling as though they've been there by the end...though it's a version of Florida you might see on CSI: Miami.

As far as Barry's writing style goes, there are a few places (especially towards the beginning of the book) where the sentence structure comes across oddly, or the details are so numerous as to be a bit confusing. However, as the story progresses, these minor details gradually disappear.

Barry is by no means a poor writer; it simply seems his transition over to fiction will be a gradual one. After all, he is a Pulitzer Prize winner and the man whom The New York Times called "the funniest man in America." In the fiction category, besides Big Trouble, he has authored Tricky Business (2002), a crime thriller satire in a similar vein, as well as co-authored several of the Peter books, with Ridley Pearson (a "prequel" series to Peter Pan).

So if you're an old-school Dave Barry fan (or even a newcomer) and haven't yet read Big Trouble, do so as soon as possible. You will have many an uproarious laugh.