Insane City is a 2013 novel by Dave Barry, his first solo novel since Tricky Business.
Seth is down-on-his-luck schlub who has exactly one thing going for him: he somehow caught the eye ot Tina, a gorgeous and rich woman and they're engaged to be married. Now in Miami, with just days to go before the wedding, all Seth has to do is make sure he arrives on time, in a tux and with the ring.
Simple, right?
Not quite. Over the course of three days, he has to deal with missing luggage, a stripper and her large boyfriend demanding money, a family of Haitian refugees, a large and aggressive orangutan, the Russian mafia, and accidentally distributed pot brownies.
In other words, your typical Barry novel.
This work contains examples of:
- Conspicuous Consumption: Wendell Corliss ends up buying two restaurants for well over their actual value simply because he was jonesing for some pizza and Chinese. He even has the Chinese delivered by helicopter. In the epilogue, Corliss hires Marty to buy up businesses and lose money because he finds it amusing.
- Chronic Hero Syndrome: Seth, despite his efforts to walk away from the situation, finds himself compelled to keep helping Laurette and her babies.
- Citizenship Marriage: As it turns out, Seth decides that the best, lasting way to help Laurette is to marry her so that she and her children can stay in the states. After a few years, they amicably divorce so they each can marry their true loves.
- Everybody Must Get Stoned: Seth's parents bring pot brownies to the wedding, which end up distributed among the guests.
- Fiction 500: Mike Clark is ludicrously wealthy, but he is envious of Wendell Corliss, who's even wealthier. Having been admitted to the "Group of Eleven," a cabal of rich individuals, Mike becomes obsessed with gaining membership to the "Group of Six", a smaller cabal of richer individuals, of whom Wendell is rumored to be one. He gets his wish... only to become obsessed with rumors of the "Group of Four".
- Fluffy Tamer: Duane, who is known throughout the region as the guy to call when you need a snake wrangled. His own snake, a 17-foot albino Burmese python, is named Blossom.
- Fluffy the Terrible: Duane's python is named Blossom. There's also an orangutan named Trevor.
- Grew a Spine: Throughout the course of the novel, Seth realizes that he can be quite brave in the face of genuine danger and learns to stand up for himself.
- Higher Understanding Through Drugs: Discussed. Wendell Corliss gets stoned, and realizes he's worked all his life for money he never gets to enjoy because he's working all the time. When he asks if this is higher understanding, Marty tells him no, he's just realizing something that's blindly obvious.
- Hooker with a Heart of Gold: LaDawne, who genuinely cares for the Haitian family and even offers to relieve Seth of his debt if he continues harboring them.
- Lost Wedding Ring: It's a sign of how much Seth cares that he is willing to go through all manner of absurdities to get back the ring that Tina had specially made for the wedding; it's a sign of how little she cares that after the wedding has been called off, she brushes off his attempt to return it.
- Mutual Envy: Under the influence of pot, billionaire Wendell Corliss confides that when he first entered college he was entirely focused on becoming rich, and since then has been entirely focused on getting richer. Now he realizes that he's never stopped to enjoy all the things he can afford, and, unlike Seth's friend Marty, has forgotten how to have fun - in fact, he's forgotten when he last wanted to have fun. Marty, on the other hand, says he's been a slacker his whole life, and wishes he'd had a little of Wendell's drive when he was younger; if he had, he'd also have been rich - nowhere near as rich as Wendell, but just rich enough to have the freedom to tell some boring rich guy prattling on next to him to shut the hell up so Marty can enjoy the sunset.
- Obnoxious Entitled Housewife: Billionaire Wendell Corliss' Swedish third wife, Greta, originally worked for his family as an au pair, and "compensated for her humble origins by treating all forms of hired help like cockroaches."
- Only in Florida: A man is about to get married to the woman of his dreams but ends up embroiled in a tangled web involving (but nowhere limited to) Haitian refugees, absurdly rich men, two violent ex cops, a stripper and her intimidating boyfriend, a pirate boat, and an orangutan. And it all unfolds in Miami.
- Rich Boredom:
- Mike Clark is so rich that he can afford anything and (almost) anyone without breaking a sweat, so he becomes obsessed with joining a secret club of world billionaires known as the "Group of Six". He gets his wish... only to become obsessed with rumors that an even more exclusive "Group of Four" exists...
- Under the influence of pot, Wendell Corliss confides to Marty that since he was a teenager, he was entirely focused on becoming obscenely rich. He succeeded, and all it has gotten him is the society of other obscenely rich people, who he has come to realize, are all "fantastically boring", because the only things about which they can knowledgeably converse are: 1) how they made their money; and 2) the things they spend their money on.
- Runaway Groom: Seth eventually decides to stand for himself and leaves Tina to marry Laurette (albeit in a Citizenship Marriage).
- Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: Mike Clark has yet to find a problem he can't pay to go away, whether it be annoying jetskiers or terrified refugees.
- Soapbox Sadie: Tina stands up for social causes and speaks out against institutional problems...only when it's convenient for her.
- The Stoner: Meaghan, Tina's younger sister, is smoking a joint or about to smoke a joint in most scenes she's in. Sid and Rose, Seth's parents, have started using medicinal marijuana but haven't quite got the hang of it yet.
- White-and-Grey Morality: Unlike Barry's first two novels, this one has no actual villains. Even Mike Clark just wants to turn the Haitians in to INS because he doesn't want his daughter's wedding to be ruined.
- Writers Cannot Do Math: Wendell Corliss is supposed to be one of the six richest people on the planet, but his statement about his net worth puts his wealth at around $36.5 billion, a large amount but nowhere near the top of the real-life list.
