"Sick Puppy" by Carl Hiaasen

BOOK TITLE: Sick Puppy
AUTHOR: Carl Hiaasen
YEAR: 1999
GENRE: Fiction
SUBGENRE: Environmental Thriller
GRADE: Pass

Twilly Spree is a twenty-something Floridian eco-warrior who would gladly beat somebody’s ass if they screwed with Mother Nature. The first of his victims in this story is Palmer Stoat, a sleazy lobbyist who shamelessly chucks food wrappers out of the window of his car. Mr. Stoat becomes even more disgusting when he tries to put together a political deal to build a bridge to Toad Island, thus burying the wildlife beneath the sand. To teach him a valuable lesson in respecting the earth, Twilly will go to some vile lengths whether it’s filling Palmer’s car with dung beetles, filling his other car with a dump truck’s haul, kidnapping his dog, or kidnapping his wife Desie, who’s already sickened with him anyways. Other colorful characters join the fray in an extortion scenario more chaotic than a deadly hurricane.

When finding things to love about Carl Hiaasen’s work, the colorful characters are the first to come to mind. After Twilly beats up some college drunkards for injuring a seagull with beer cans, you pretty much have no choice but to like the guy. The kidnapped doggie, Boodle/McGuinn, proves to be a sweetie pie and pivotal to bringing the story to its wild conclusion. Even the main villain of the story, Mr. Gash, has some quirky habits, such as listening to tapes of violent 9-1-1 calls while dubbing them with dramatic classical music. But none are quirkier than the returning Clinton “Skink” Tyree, a braid-bearded, shower cap-wearing, glass eye-having, and nearly naked eco-terrorist with a delightfully misanthropic side to him. There’s not one character in this book who won’t strike the reader as wonderfully weird.

But as much as you love to read about these cartoon-like characters, some of them you’ll wish a nasty fate upon. Mr. Gash is a sociopath hit man, so he should go first on the barbecue rack. Palmer Stoat is already a classless litterbug, but he’s also a heartless wildlife hunter with worse marksmanship than Ray Charles. Robert Clapley is a huge part of the bridge deal that’s going to kill off wildlife, but he also has a psychotic fetish for Barbies (not that there’s anything wrong with that). Governor Dick Artemus is just as…well…dickish as his first name suggests with his sleazy politics and loudmouthed behavior. No need to worry about these morons making it to the finish line, because sooner or later, everybody, and I mean everybody from this book gets what they deserve. Such is the way of Mother Earth.

If you’re intimidated by the fact that this book is five hundred plus pages long, relax. Carl Hiaasen’s thrillers always dictate a fast pace without neglecting the finer details of his prose. Everything is shown like a movie on TV from the details of Mr. Gash’s god-awful haircut to the creative way in which he gets his comeuppance. Even when Mr. Hiaasen is giving a History Channel-like lecture on the back stories of his characters, you can still enjoy the ride and not feel like he’s trying too hard to maintain your interest. Trust me, he doesn’t have to try at all. After several decades of writing these kinds of humorous novels, kick-ass environmental storytelling is as easy to him as breathing in and out.

Although Carl Hiaasen novels are entertaining and fun to read, there’s also an important message behind all of the chaotic violence, Sick Puppy being no exception. The message of land and animal preservation is highly apparent in this book since we actually get to see what kinds of shady deals go on between lobbyists and politicians, both Democrat and Republican. Money controls everything in politics and as long as there’s lots of it going around, nobody’s going to care what happens to the baby toads or cuddly squirrels of Toad Island. If on the other hand you actually have a soul like Twilly Spree and Clinton Tyree do, you’ll realize that there are more important things in this world that money such as intelligence and decency. Will Carl Hiaasen’s novels change the minds of ignorant people? I hope they do. A passing grade goes to this wonderfully crafted piece of literature.

Barbie and Ken

When I was a kid growing up in Chehalis, Washington, commercials would constantly come up on TV for Barbie products and my mom would jokingly suggest that she should buy them for me. You know what my answer was? “Nooooooooo!!” Now that I’m an adult, it seems as though I’m not the only one who thinks this way. Somewhere along the leaden path, being called a Barbie or Ken doll became an insult. It’s constantly used as a slur against WWE Divas and any other female wrestler who happens to be skinny and pretty. Ed Schultz loves to refer to Sarah Palin as “Caribou Barbie” whenever she comes up in conversation. On the flip side, Erick Erickson once called Wendy Davis “Abortion Barbie”. So basically, this insult can work with anybody as long as they have something to attach the slur to, such as a profession, a hobby, or a belief. I don’t want you guys to think I’m actually using these insults on people, but somewhere along the way, some nut job out there could refer to Danica Patrick as “NASCAR Barbie”. Somebody could also put it out there that Bill O’Reilly is “Conservative Ken”. And yet another example could be that Mary Kay Letourneau is somehow referred to as “Statutory Rape Barbie”. I keep having to ask myself where all of these Barbie and Ken references come from. What does being a Barbie/Ken doll imply about that person? That they’re perfect in every way? That they’re plastic and fake? That they’re shallow? Or maybe there’s this stigma going around about how Barbie dolls are anatomically incorrect and that if somebody actually looked like one, they’d be fucking dead. Well, as far as I know, Danica Patrick can still walk around without breaking her ankles, so there’s no way in hell she could be “NASCAR Barbie”. You’re probably asking yourself what all this talk about girl toys has to do with literature. Well, the same thing could be applied to popular books. For example, someone could call Bella Swan “Vampire Barbie”, which would most likely be attributed to her Mary-Sue qualities. So is that what it takes for someone to be a Barbie doll? Mary-Sue attributes? I’d have to say so. If that’s the case, then the outside world is just one big doll house. But maybe if I actually ventured outside my room and into the real world to meet some of these people, it’ll be even less likely that a giant pink convertible will pick me up for a trip to the Silverdale Shopping Mall. People are Barbie and Ken dolls until you actually get to know who they are, all their faults, all their pains, and all their love. Maybe that’s why it’s so hard to be a writer: because we have to work so diligently to acquaint the reader with our characters so that they don’t become Barbie and Ken dolls.

　

***BUMPER STICKER OF THE DAY***

“Normal people scare me, but not as much as I scare them.”