Serpent Girl
A Novel
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- 49,00 kr
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- 49,00 kr
Publisher Description
“The guys who were supposed to be my crew, my pals, my posse, had left me for dead, after I had gone above and beyond for them, after I had sussed out the perfect score, after I had done my homework, after I had overcome their stupidity, after I had sacrificed my near-virginity by having sex with the limbless lady.”
When he wakes up naked by the side of the highway in the middle of the desert, twenty-two-year-old Bailey Quinn is only sure of a few things: He’s in a world of testicle pain. He’s tripping out of his head on peyote. And someone seems to have made a half-assed attempt at slashing his throat. He can’t for the life of him remember what happened. And then it all comes back: His boys screwed him over.
Bailey, college dropout and carny, was working props and rigging for a touring tent circus and freak show. The Freaks were the nastiest, most tweaked-out group of misfits Bailey had ever come across. But the Freaks were doing some shady bookkeeping in addition to a boatload of veterinary Quaalude and crystal meth. So to get the inside dope on the circus payroll, Bailey took up with Eelie, the Serpent Girl, and began an unexpectedly erotic and dangerous odyssey.
As Bailey hits the road to track down his “friends” and get his loot back, a black-edged, hilarious caper unfolds. From Tank Deerflower, the drug-dealing rodeo rider, and Arnold, the fire-eater with a temper as black as his charred throat, to Sissy, the beautiful ex-junkie/whore who steals Bailey’s heart, strange characters and stranger events converge in this fast, gritty, and unforgettable novel. Crafted with artistry and deftness, Serpent Girl is a voyage into the darkest depths of carny life–and, remarkably, a tender love story to boot.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Filmmaker and playwright Carnahan's gleefully deranged tale of drugs, deception and bad decisions feels like something Hunter S. Thompson might have written if he'd taken a course in narrative economy. Bailey Quinn, a 22-year-old college dropout, wakes up in the Columbia River Basin high on peyote and sans pants. A scabbed slash across his neck reminds him that his buddies threw him over after they robbed the payroll at Bailey's place of employment, Circus Maximus, a poor man's Ringling Brothers ruthlessly run by its freak show performers. Bailey sets out to find his duplicitous crew and recover his money so that he can once and for all give up "copping free" a way of life that revolved around robbing insured businesses. What stands in his way are the circuses' Freaks ("the nastiest, most tweaked-out group... I had ever come across"), led by the titular flipper-armed Serpent Girl, whom Bailey had seduced in order to ferret out information for the heist. Several tender scenes between Bailey and the Serpent Girl prove first-timer Carnahan's talent for odd yet poignant juxtapositions, and throughout the novel, he renders both his characters and the geography of the American West in vibrant high style (a heavily tattooed gangster looks as if he'd "rolled in a pile of wet comic books"). Will lovable screwup Bailey finally turn a corner with the help of ex-smackhead and prostitute Sissy? The bang-up ending is pretty happy, and cinematic enough for the silver screen. net him a blurb from Mike Myers, whose name may draw in those more likely to rent DVDs than buy books, while praise from Carl Hiaasen and Elmore Leonard should attract the rest.
