Swamp Story is a 2023 novel by Dave Barry, his first solo novel since Insane City in 2013.
Jesse Braddock lives a miserable life in an Everglades shack with her infant daughter and the baby's father Slater, a gorgeous but empty-headed man sure he's about to become a Reality Show star. While taking a random walk in the swamp, she stumbles on a cache of hidden gold, and suddenly sees a way out of her predicament. But what should be the simple task of extracting the gold and finding a buyer for it becomes intertwined with the lives of two redneck treasure hunters, an unemployed newspaperman named Phil, a local bait store owner's latest Get-Rich-Quick Scheme, and a press conference featuring the United States Secretary of the Interior, an authentic swamp dweller, and a 250-pound wild boar.
In the same vein as Big Trouble, Tricky Business, and Insane City, anyone who doesn't live in Florida would be amazed how much can happen in just a few days.
This work contains examples of:
- Accidental Public Confession: A non-verbal example. U.S. Interior Secretary Whitt Chastain reacts reflexively to seeing an alligator sprinting at him - he grabs his press aide Jacky and throws her into its path, while scuttling backwards in terror. His cowardice is captured in slow-motion by a news crew, and his political career never recovers.
- Alcohol-Induced Idiocy:
- Ken and Brad Bortle's father Webster liked to tell tourists that the alligator behind their store chomped off the top joint of his index finger. In actuality, Webster and his brother Canaan got hammered and made a bet that Webster could catch a ride aboard a moving truck with his bare hand.
- Phil got drunk while his wife was undergoing treatment for breast cancer and had sloppy sex with a coworker that he realized he didn't even like after he sobered up. No one, including Phil himself, blames his wife for divorcing him.
- The Alcoholic: Phil, who consumes an average of six Moscow Mules in one sitting, every day.
- All for Nothing:
- Most of the gold the characters spend the book searching for or fighting over ends up exactly where it started: at the bottom of the swamp. The narrative implies that it is never found.
- In the chaos of the alligator's appearance at the "Python Challenge", a single 15-foot python escapes into the swamp, where it will lay just short of a hundred eggs, easily replacing all the pythons killed or captured during the challenge.
- Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: According to the narrator, Kristof Berliuz is so feared in Miami that it does not matter if you are connected with "powerful politicians, or business leaders, or violent criminals, or even rap musicians."
- Artistic License – Law: In-Universe.
- Averted with Eric's accurate description of Florida's laws concerning buried treasure; legally any property belongs to the owner of the land on which it is found, regardless of who found it;
- Played Straight with Slater's assertion that he is entitled to one-half of the gold Jesse found, as her common law husband; pursuant to statute, Florida does not recognize common-law marriages, except those entered into in good faith before 1972.
- Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: Jesse reflects that Slater was probably being truthful when he told her he loved her. She failed to realize that he was capable of falling out of love with her as quickly as he fell in.[W]hen he was into something, he was all in... but only for a while. In time, inevitably, he would look for something new to be in to.
- Bad Boss: U.S. Secretary of the Interior Whitt Chastain, who never thinks anything through, never accepts responsibility for his decisions, and blames everything that goes wrong on his Beleaguered Assistant, who has been working like hell to prevent disaster from occurring.
- Be a Whore to Get Your Man: An inverted male example. Slater's reflex question in any given scenario is whether there's an opportunity for him to take his shirt off and flex his muscles for the benefit of onlookers.
- Benevolent Boss: Subverted. Whitt Chastain never lets his smile drop while news cameras are rolling, even as he is dropping a Cluster F-Bomb on his press aides and telling them that they'll be lucky not to be fired once the event is over.
- Blood Oath: What Duck and Billy Campbell swear to the prison inmate who tells them about the Everglades treasure, to split half of it with his teenage daughter. They're lying, of course.
- Boom, Headshot!: How "Skeeter" dispatches the alligator attacking his "emotional support boar", Buddy (and, incidentally, U.S. Interior Secretary Chastain).
- Brainless Beauty: Jesse always knew she was a lot smarter than Slater, but thought that his caring, attentiveness, and once-in-a-lifetime good looks would make up for his intellectual deficits. She was wrong.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: Done in the "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue in the same manner as in Tricky Business:Jesse and Brad - but you knew this already - got married.
- Comedic Work, Serious Scene: The overall tone of the novel is farcical, but there are plenty of serious scenes:
- Jesse and Brad's life-and-death struggle with the Campbell brothers in the swamp, with Jesse's infant daughter at risk;
- Slater demanding one-half of Jesse's gold windfall, or else he'll seek sole custody of their baby;
- Phil breaking down in tears when his daughter sees him drinking, and begging on his knees for help and forgiveness.
- Closest Thing We Got: Duck Campbell insists that splashing bleach on his brother's machete wound is just as good as a trip to the emergency room, and a lot cheaper, "except your drug companies don't want nobody to know that."I got you the real Clorox, not the genetic.
- Conspicuous Consumption: Among the accoutrements at 4-year-old Caitlin Pletzger's Frozen-themed birthday party are:
- A custom-made Princess Elsa dress: $800.00;
- A custom-made ice castle cake "the size of a Fiat... prepared by the same baker patronized by Gloria Estefan": $8,000.00, "plus a hefty delivery fee"; and
- A custom-made pinata in the likeness of Olaf the Snowman, filled with custom-made truffles from "the same chocolatier patronized by both Martha Stewart and Jay-Z": $1,500.00.
- All of which are thoroughly ruined because the birthday girl's father is too rich and important to own a hammer and nail, or a ladder.
- Crazy Enough to Work: No one is more surprised than Ken Bortle when his idea for the "Everglades Melon Monster" becomes an Internet sensation and the world starts beating a path to his store. Lampshaded in the exchange between Ken and his brother, Brad:We tried sane. Sane ain't working for us anymore. It's time to try crazy.
- Create Your Own Villain: Channel 8 People Power News Director Jennifer Taylor gleefully takes advantage of reporter Patsy Hartmann's on-air F-bomb to fire her (having wanted to do so ever since Patsy stubbornly resisted Jennifer's attempt to retire her and replace her with a younger news anchor). Patsy starts a podcast based on her withering commentary on the "new and improved" Channel 8 News, and her audience quickly exceeds the number of people actually watching Channel 8.
- Dating What Daddy Hates: Jesse became so sick of her Helicopter Parents that their immediate detestation of Slater was one of the strongest points in his favor.
- Death by Materialism: While fleeing from Berliuz's henchmen, Duck runs his ATV into a sinkhole and begins sinking quickly; he does not realize until it is too late that his efforts to swim to the surface are hampered by the gold bars he has in his pants pockets.
- Disappointed in You: Phil finally breaks his drinking habit when his daughter sees him back at his usual spot in a seedy bar, after solemnly promising to stop drinking.
- Disaster Dominoes:
- Caitlin Pletzger hits her birthday pinata hard enough to yank it out of the wall, but not break it. Since her Idle Rich parents don't own a ladder or any tools, the father conscripts one of the entertainers to hold up the pinata at arms length. Which naturally results in...
- The blindfolded Caitlin whacking the unfortunate man in the crotch with the golf club she was given (her mother didn't want to use a wooden stick, as her daughter could have gotten a splinter)...
- The entertainer doubles over and his costume head catapults off, breaking the father's nose...
- Before stumbling into the $8,000 custom-made cake and "sending a wave of white frosting" over all the guests.Andrew Pletzger stood up and, blood still gushing from his nose, looked around at the devastation that had been visited upon the birthday party: the massive castle cake a massive mess, his wife enraged, his daughter sobbing, his guests splattered with white frosting gobs.
- Establishing Character Moment: The novel opens with Jesse yelling to her boyfriend Slater that a Burmese python is advancing on her and their baby, Willa. Slater stumbles outside and, seeing the snake, yells for his partner to get his video camera. After a few moments, Jesse grabs a tree branch and strikes the snake on the snout, driving it away. When the camera is finally retrieved, Slater complains that Jesse should have waited a few more moments so they could have filmed her hitting the snake - or, better yet, filmed him hitting the snake. Jesse responds by yelping that the snake has come back, causing Slater to let out a girly scream, dive to the ground and curl into a ball.
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: During the final confrontation between Brad, Jesse, and the Campbell brothers, Brad offers to trade the key to the vehicle containing the gold, once Duck releases Jesse's baby daughter. It takes Duck an extra moment to grasp that Brad honestly cares more about keeping himself, Jesse and the baby safe than he wants to keep any portion of the gold.
- Foil: Whitt Chastain and his press aide Frank. Confronted by the same advancing alligator, Chastain acts on reflex and throws the nearest available object - his other aide Jacky - into its path and scuttles away in terror. Frank also acts on reflex and throws himself onto Jacky, pulling her away from the alligator's jaws with inches to spare.
- For Want Of A Nail: Literally. The entire birthday party of 4-year-old Caitlin Pletzger comes to a halt when she hits the pinata hard enough to yank it out of the ceiling, but not break it. Her father and several other men are in attendance, but all of them are stymied because the father doesn't own a nail, a ladder, or any tools.
- The Gambling Addict: Jesse's ex-boyfriend Eric, a successful lawyer who is nonetheless up to his ears in debt to the worst mob boss in Miami.
- Gold Digger: Slater didn't partner with Jesse because he was after her money, so much as he took it for granted that her money was his to do with as he pleased, and she was too overwhelmed by his looks to say no; after she is rumored to have found a cache of gold, he demands half of it or else he'll take custody of their daughter.
- Groin Attack: Phil is roped into appearing as "Dora the Explorer" at a rich man's daughter's birthday party, and then roped into holding up the pinata at arm's length. The inevitable consequence is the birthday girl burying the head of a five-iron in his crotch.
- Helicopter Parents: Jesse's parents, whose "well-intended but suffocating need to control her" was one of the reasons she fell in love with Slater; it's also the main reason she refuses to beg them for money and to come home, no matter how much she hates her current situation.
- Human Resources: Andrew Pletzger ropes Phil into holding up the rope of the pinata at his daughter's birthday party because he is "the most disposable person at the party, who also happened to be the tallest."
- Idle Rich: Andrew Pletzger, the father of the birthday girl at the party Phil is reluctantly appearing at, owns three luxury watches collectively worth just under a quarter million dollars, but no hammer, ladder, or nail, which become crucially important for re-hanging the party pinata.
- Ignorant of Their Own Ignorance:
- Slater believes that moving to a rustic cabin in the Everglades was enough to make him an authentic "Glades Man", and would allow him to sell a Reality Show pilot. In the epilogue, he gets his show, but it is canceled after one season after it becomes obvious that he knows nothing about the local flora and fauna, and is terrified of the few wild animals he encounters.
- Jesse's ex-boyfriend, Eric, a gambling addict who "prefers intuition and hunches over actual information" and has an unshakeable faith in his own betting prowess, no matter how often he loses.He had once lost $25,000 on an English Premier League soccer match because he was not aware that Manchester City was a different team entirely from Manchester United.
- Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: The Campbell brothers, Duck and Billy, are experienced armed robbers, which mean they have plenty of experience handling firearms, but much less with shooting them, except at inanimate objects, and seldom at people actually capable of firing back. This quickly becomes apparent when they get in a firefight with Kristof Berliuz's henchmen, both of whom have seen actual combat in Eastern Europe.
- Insane Troll Logic:
- Stu, Kark, and Slater, half-baked on marijuana, insist that bats hunt with radar, not sonar, because "submarines use sonar, but planes use radar, planes fly, and bats also fly."
- TV reporter Patsy Hartmann spends an "excruciating" hour interviewing a chiropractor who claims to have converted a tanning bed into a time machine; he offers to demonstrate it by climbing into it, closing the lid, and climbing out five minutes later, claiming that he traveled two weeks into the future. Asked if he can prove he was in the future, he says no, because he never left the machine while he was there. When Patsy asks how he can prove that his "invention" isn't just a tanning bed with wires attached, he replies, "because, as I have just demonstrated, this is a Time Machine," although it turns out it actually is.
- Insistent Terminology: Slater consistently refers to himself, and the title of his proposed Reality Show, as "Glades Guy", because he thinks it sounds better; his partner, Kark, keeps correcting him that an "authentic" Everglades inhabitant should refer to himself as a "Glades Man" or "Gladesman."
- It's Personal: What Kristof Berliuz's dragon, Tenklo, tells his boss when he insists on accompanying the second group of thugs being sent to retrieve the gold, having been wounded in the shoulder during the earlier firefight with the Campbell brothers.
- Karmic Jackpot: Phil has been out of work for seven months, but after he quits drinking, his Alcoholics Anonymous sponsor helps him find a job as a researcher for a public-interest law firm. His self-esteem recovers, as does his relationship with his daughter, and he plays a major role in winning a discrimination suit against the Jerkass real estate developer whose daughter whacked Phil in the crotch with a five iron.
- Last-Name Basis: Slater's first name is Michael, referenced in the TV news interview in front of the bait store, but it is only given once, and every other character refers to him only by his last name.
- Mama Bear: When Jesse gets hold of a shovel, Duck becomes very sorry he threatened her baby.
- The Mafiya: The secondary antagonist is an Eastern European bookie named Kristof Berliuz who was previously active in arms trading and uranium smuggling.
- Moral Myopia: Duck and Billy Campbell scammed the approximate location of the Everglades treasure out of their cellmate by promising (falsely) to split it with his teenage daughter. They are still outraged that Jesse, having discovered the gold, is concealing its location from her two housemates:"That's right," Duck said. "Bitch wants to keep it all to herself."
Billy shook his head at the dishonesty of it. - Nature Is Not Nice:
- Slater fancies himself a "Glades Man" because he lives in a rundown shack in the Everglades. Unfortunately, he's terrified of snakes, insects, and barn owls.
- Whitt Chastain, the U.S. Secretary of the Interior, orders his aides to arrange a press conference and photo op in the Everglades, despite his well-known hatred of the outdoors. The press conference quickly goes to hell, when their "star" python hunter crashes his airboat into the dais and his "emotional support boar" relieves itself torrentially on the secretary's khaki trousers. By way of explanation, the hunter says he's trained the hog to hold it until he's out of the airboat.
- Nice to the Waiter: Whitt Chastain keeps a paternal Stepford Smile on his face and a warm, avuncular arm around his aides' shoulders, while telling them in a Cluster F-Bomb-laced undertone how badly they've fouled up his press conference and that they will be lucky to just be demoted, not fired, once the event is over.
- Only in Florida: A staple trope of Dave Barry's novels. Lampshaded by the Secretary of the Interior's press aides:Jacky: The rest should be pretty routine.
Frank: Routine? Are you serious?
Jacky: You're right. I need to remember this is Florida. - Our Cryptids Are Different: Ken Bortle has the idea of converting his father and uncle's bait store into a "research center" for discovering the "Everglades Melon Monster", a supposed invasive species that has migrated to South Florida from Michigan and Ohio.
- The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: Whitt Chastain, the U.S. Secretary of the Interior, previously served four terms as a Congressman, during which time he did not introduce a single piece of legislation but set a record for cable news interviews. He wanted to be Secretary of State rather than Interior, despite having no qualifications for either job. But the administration appointed him to the latter because nobody inside or outside the federal government gives a shit what the Interior Department does. note
- Product Placement: In-Universe. Ken Bortle inserts the name of his bait store into each Internet video he shoots at least once, and into the TV news interview about it about once every fifteen seconds.
- Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: Duck and Billy Campbell come close to assaulting Jesse several times; from the casual way they talk about it, they've done it before, to other women.
- Ripped from the Headlines: Jesse's decision to move to the cabin with Slater was partially prompted by the chaos of the COVID-19 pandemic, which made a remote cabin seem like a safe place to live.
- After Jesse wounds Billy while escaping from him and Duck, the latter buys a bottle of bleach from the grocery store and applies it directly to the wound, scoffing that it is just as effective as a trip to the ER, and the bleach will kill everything, "including the COVID, except your drug companies don't want nobody to know that."
- Screams Like a Little Girl: Slater, twice, when confronted by a Burmese Python and a barn owl taking flight.
- Single Woman Seeks Good Man: Jesse ends up with Brad, who's "cute", but nowhere near as attractive as Slater, because he's reliable and genuinely cares about her and Willa.
- Skewed Priorities: The following exchange, taking place immediately after the Establishing Character Moment described above:Jesse: Slater, do you understand what just happened here?
Slater: Yes, Jess, I do. What happened was we had a chance to get some critical footage that could sell this Reality Show to the network, and we didn't get it.
Jesse: No, what happened was you were so concerned about getting your footage that you left me and your baby alone here to get attacked by a gigantic snake.
Slater: Jess, come on, it didn't attack you. It went away.
Jesse: It went away because I hit it!
Kark: You did?
...
Slater: Jesus, Jess, couldn't you have waited like thirty seconds?
Jesse: You're serious, aren't you?
Slater: Well, yeah! So we could have got footage of the snake! Maybe get a shot of me hitting it with the stick!
Jesse: Unbelievable.
Slater: What? - Through Her Stomach: Brad, at a loss for anything clever or romantic to say to Jesse, takes her to lunch at a hole-in-the-wall barbecue joint he knows. Having not had a regular meal in days (if not weeks), she is ecstatic with the quality of the food, and just as appreciative that Brad allows both of them to eat in silence without feeling that they need to make conversation.
- Swamp Monster: Ken Bortle's latest Get-Rich-Quick Scheme.
- Swamps Are Evil: Played With. The stretch of the Everglades in which most of the story takes place has its share of dangerous wildlife and natural hazards, but none of these things are "evil" so much as indifferent to the humans inhabiting it.
- Trophy Child / Wife: As soon as Jesse hit her third trimester of pregnancy, Slater lost all interest in her and their child. Now he pays no attention to either of them, except as "props for the camera, extras in his idiotic fantasy of Reality Show stardom."
- Underling with an F in PR: Whoever replaced Frank and Jacky as Whitt Chastain's press aides was either incompetent or extremely rushed, as they released a statement to the media that the embarrassing public footage of him throwing Jacky into the path of an advancing alligator was "taken out of context." One newscaster's knee-jerk response is, "what fucking context do you need for that?!"
- Vice President Who?: Within the first 12 hours of it going viral, more people in the United States are aware of the "Everglades Melon Monster" craze than can name their country's current VP.
- Viewers Are Geniuses: In-Universe. In the epilogue, Slater gets his reality show deal, but it is canceled after one season due to dismal ratings and even more dismal reviews. Despite Slater's movie-star good looks, it doesn't take viewers long to notice that he doesn't actually do anything on his show except preen and flex - in one reviewer's words, the swamp vegetation in the background comes off as smarter than him.
- What Does She See in Him?:
- Jesse has had plenty of time to reevaluate her relationship with Slater, and to conclude that she fell in love with him for all the wrong reasons: his dynamite good looks, the open jealousy from all her girlfriends, the fact that her Helicopter Parents immediately hated him, and that in the confusion of the pandemic he seemed so confident and reliable.
- Brad is nowhere near as physically attractive as Slater, but he is otherwise everything Slater isn't: responsible, caring, and brave.
- "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: A staple of Barry's novels.
- Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: "I hate snakes" is a Catchphrase employed by nearly all the secondary characters.
- Windbag Politician: U.S. Interior Secretary and future Presidential aspirant Whitt Chastain:Chastain responded to these questions with the practiced air of the experienced, principal-free politician, exhaling a dense, billowing cloud of words that suggested, without explicitly saying so, that he either was or was not deeply concerned about climate change and, as such, was taking all necessary steps.
- Worst News Judgment Ever: Channel 8 People Power News reporter Patsy Hartmann is sent on all manner of lame assignments, including "a personal trainer trying to set a Guinness World Record for crushing mangoes with her thighs, an elderly couple in Hallandale who believed their son had been reincarnated as an iguana," and a chiropractor who claims to have converted a tanning bed into a functioning time machine. Subverted in that these assignments are deliberately punitive, dumped on Patsy by her younger superior, as retaliation for not retiring when the superior tried to squeeze her out.
- Would Hit a Girl: Duck thinks nothing of punching Jesse unconscious.
- Would Hurt a Child: Duck threatens to kill Jesse's infant daughter if she doesn't lead them to the gold. Based on his earlier actions in the book, there's no doubt in the reader's mind that he would.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: After selling Jesse and her gold secret to Kristoff Berliuz to pay off his own gambling debt, Eric belatedly becomes aware of this trope's application, and feebly asks for reassurance that Jesse will not be harmed. Berliuz, a pure businessman, doesn't even bother with token words.
- In the finale, Duck orders his younger brother to shoot at Berliuz's approaching thugs with their only remaining gun, while Duck fires up the ATV hauling the gold. As soon as the thugs draw their own guns, Duck takes off, not even looking back as Billy is shot dead.
