The Fire in Fiction (27 page)

The door of the cell clicked open and a plump female jailer entered, complaining to Agent Mike that the jail had no clothing on hand that would fit a traitor and murderer as puny as this one, and that something had to
be specially ordered, which took most of the goddamn day and which the little piece of shit didn't deserve. "Put it on!" she shouted, throwing a set of gray baby clothes at the bear. The outfit fell from his grasp to the floor. "Pick it up!" she shouted now.

It seemed to take an excruciatingly long time for him to remove his hospital gown and pull on the little T-shirt and pants, and indeed Agent Mike grumbled, "Christ— finally," when Winkie was done. Glancing down at the baby outfit, the bear didn't think he could be any more humiliated than this. A row of figures was stenciled on the front.

"That's
yer number,"
said the jailer, enunciating angrily as if the suspect might not understand, or might pretend not to understand, these simple words. "From
now on.
Don't
forgit
it."

Quite different when the political prisoner is a teddy bear, isn't it? But have another look. Generating humor around this toy depends first on building the believable context for the unlikely element. In Chase's scene, the sneering contempt of the prison matron and the excruciating exchange of hospital gown for prison garb are simple devices but effective for creating irony, considering that this extreme hostility is directed at a cuddly stuffed animal.

Later in
Winkie,
Chase subjects the bear to harsh interrogation and a mock trial. Both are spun out at length and in great detail; the longer and more detailed, the funnier it gets. In other words, the humor isn't in the teddy bear itself. Hilarity springs from the bear's too-real situation. The unfortunately familiar details of torture and secret trials are what make this a parody. The bear is merely a device for making hypervigilism against terrorism look ridiculous.

Political satire exploits one of the richest veins of irony that we've got, so why aren't more novelists mining it? Perhaps because politicians are already too close to self-parody? I'm not sure, but there's no doubt that Christopher Buckley is perhaps our finest political satirist. His novel
Boomsday
(2007) tackles a dry subject—the

coming retirement of the Baby Boom generation and the financial drain it will place on America—in a way that is a nonstop hoot.

The heroine of
Boomsday
is not a Boomer but a Gen X public relations whiz kid named Cassandra Devine, who writes a popular blog on which she vents her frustrations. Most recent of these is her anger over higher taxes being imposed on her generation in order to finance the Boomers' retirement. As Cassandra sees it, her future is being mortgaged so that Boomers can retire in comfort and improve their golf games.

On her blog, Cassandra urges rebellion. Attacks on retirement communities follow. Gatehouses are stormed. Golf courses are burned. Cassandra gets in trouble but she is unrepentant. She dreams up an even more outlandish idea, which she uses her promotional skill to push. The media quickly picks up on it:

"From Washington, tonight, a
novel
proposal on how to solve the Social Security crisis. For that story, we go now to our correspondent, Betsy Blarkin."

"Thanks, Katie. Cassandra Devine, the twenty-nine-year-old blogger who calls herself Cassandra, is back in the news. Last month, she urged young people not to pay taxes and to storm the gates of Boomer retirement communities.

"At a press conference today, she unveiled a plan that, she says, would solve the problem by making the
government
solvent.

"Her solution? The government should offer incentives to retiring Boomers—to kill themselves."

"'Americans are living longer. Okay, but why should my generation spend our lives in hock subsidizing their longevity? They want to live forever—we're saying, let them pay for it.'"

"Under Devine's plan, the government would completely eliminate estate taxes for anyone who kills them-self at age seventy. Anyone agreeing to commit suicide

at age
sixty-five
would receive a
bonus,
including a two-week, all-expenses-paid 'farewell honeymoon.'

"'Our grandparents grew up in the Depression and fought in World War Two. They were the so-called Greatest Generation. Our parents, the Baby Boomers, dodged the draft, snorted cocaine, made self-indulgence a virtue. I call them the Ungreatest Generation. Here's their chance, finally, to give something back.'"

"Devine has even come up with a better term for suicide: 'Voluntary Transitioning.' I spoke with her earlier today after her press conference. ...

"Ms. Devine, do you expect anyone to take this proposal of yours seriously?"

"Well, Betsy, you're interviewing me on network television, so I'd say that's a good start. If you're asking why am I proposing that Americans kill themselves in large numbers, my answer is, because of the refusal of the government, again and again, to act honestly and responsibly. When Social Security began, there were fifteen workers to support one retiree. Now there are three workers per retiree. Soon it will be two. You can run from that kind of math, but you can't hide. It means that someone my age will have to spend their entire life paying unfair taxes, just so the Boomers can hit the golf course at sixty-two and drink gin and tonics until they're ninety. What happened to the American idea of leaving your kids better off than you were? If the government has a better idea, hey, we're all for it. Put it on the table. Meanwhile, we're putting this on the table. And it's not going away."

"A number of experts that we spoke to, including Karl Kansteiner of the Rand Institute in Washington, actually
agreed
that such a measure, however drastic, would in fact solve the Social Security and U.S. budget crisis."

"The average American now lives to seventy-eight, seventy-nine years old. Many live much longer. We cur-

rently are experiencing what could be called a surplus of octogenarians, nonagenarians, and even centenarians. If the government didn't have to pay benefits to these elders, say, past the age of seventy, the savings would be vast. Enormous. Indeed, tempting. Certainly, it is not a solution for, shall we say, the faint of heart."

"Others, like Gideon Payne of the Society for the Protection of Every Ribonucleic Molecule, call Devine's idea 'morally repugnant.'"

"Have we finally reached the point where
we
are advocating mass murder
as a
national policy? This entire plan, this scheme, is an abomination in the eyes of the Almighty. I tremble for my country. This woman should be ashamed."

"Cassandra Devine doesn't appear in the least ashamed. Indeed, she seems quite determined. Katie?"

"Thank you, Betsy Blarkin in Washington, for that report. Finally, tonight, Wal-Mart announced that it has obtained permission to open a one-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-square-foot megastore on the Mall, in Washington. ..."

Students of English literature will recognize in Cassandra's plan echoes of Jonathan Swift's seminal satire of the eighteenth century, the essay "A Modest Proposal," in which he proposed solving the problem of the population explosion in Ireland by eating babies. Cassandra's plan has the similar satire value, but did you also notice Buckley's deft parody of an evening news broadcast? He combines in this passage the techniques of both satire
and
parody to make a point. It isn't Boomers who are at fault; it's the U.S. government, which repeatedly ducks the coming crisis.

If you are writing a satire, studying the lengths to which these novelists go is essential. I have quoted a few choice passages above, but the novels cited generate satire over their entire lengths. They are funny for hundreds of pages. If your current manuscript is a satire,

how will you sustain the hilarity? I promise you, it is more work than you imagine.

FUNNY VOICES

As I mentioned at the outset of this chapter, there are a thousand ways to be funny. Another of them can embed itself in one of the most common of elements of fiction writing: the narrative voice.

It's easiest to examine this as applied to a first-person narrator. It isn't necessarily true that a narrator needs to be a stand-up

comedian, although chic-lit is full of smart-mouthed heroines, of

course, as is (strangely) a genre at the opposite end of the spectrum, vampire-hunter novels. Odd and offbeat narrators can supply plenty of wry lightness even in a heavy story. Think Holden Caulfield or Forrest Gump.

Gary Shteyngart made a sparkling debut with his novel
The Russian Debutante's Handbook
(2002) but also turned in a strong sophomore title,
Absurdistan
(2006).
Absurdistan
is the story of a large (in many senses) Russian man, Misha Vainberg, who was educated in America and even has an American girlfriend, but who finds himself trapped in Russia and unable to get a new visa after his father in St. Petersburg kills an Oklahoma businessman and then turns up dead himself.

In an attempt to influence the Immigration and Naturalization Service, Misha pens his appeal, the novel, opening it in his typical vainglorious-yet-melancholy fashion:

This book, then, is my love letter to the generals in charge of the Immigration and Naturalization Service. A love letter as well as a plea:
Gentlemen, let me back in!
I am an American impounded in a Russians' body. I have been educated at Accidental College, a venerable midwestern institution for young New York, Chicago, and San Francisco aristocrats where the virtues of democracy are often debated at teatime. I have lived in

New York for eight years, and I have been an exemplary American, contributing to the economy by spending over US$2,000,000 on legally purchased goods and services, including the world's most expensive dog leash (I briefly owned two poodles). I have dated Rouenna Sales—no, "dated" is the wrong term—I have
roused
her from the Bronx working-class nightmare of her youth and deposited her at Hunter College, where she is studying to become an executive secretary.

Now, I am certain that everyone at the Immigration and Naturalization Service is deeply familiar with Russian literature. As you read about my life and struggles in these pages, you will see certain similarities with Ob-lomov, the famously large gentleman who refused to stir from his couch in the nineteenth-century novel of the same name. I won't try to sway you from this analogy (I haven't the energy, for one thing), but may I suggest another possibility: Prince Myshkin from Dostoyevsky's
The Idiot.
Like the prince, I am something of a holy fool.

You have to wonder if Vainberg is being serious in addressing himself to the INS in such bombastic terms; hopefully not. Even so, his comparisons of himself to the antiheroes of Russian literature and his boasting about expensive dog collars he has purchased lend credibility to his claim of being a "holy fool." Do you get the feeling that outrageous things are going to happen to Vainberg? You would be right. His semi-crazy voice has already got our expectations in line.

Novelists who work with first-person narrators have a natural advantage when creating funny voices, but third person can work, too.

Our lord of low comedy is undoubtedly Carl Hiaasen. His send-ups of Florida low-lifes, crooks, and politicians have delighted readers for a dozen outings. In
Skinny Dip
(2004), he builds a caper around the revenge scheme of heiress Joey Perrone, whose husband pushes her off the stern of a cruise ship. Never mind why. It has to do with his role in an environmental scam. Trust me, it's wacky. Anyway, you don't have to go beyond the first page for a dose of Hiassen's signature voice:

At the stroke of eleven on a cool April night, a woman named Joey Perrone went overboard from a luxury deck of the cruise liner M.V.
Sun Duchess.
Plunging toward the dark Atlantic, Joey was too dumbfounded to panic.

I married an asshole, she thought, knifing headfirst into the waves.

The impact tore off her silk skirt, blouse, panties, wristwatch and sandals, but Joey remained conscious and alert. Of course she did. She had been co-captain of her college swim team, a biographical nugget that her husband obviously had forgotten.

Bobbing in its fizzy wake, Joey watched the gaily lit
Sun Duchess
continue steaming away at twenty nautical miles per hour. Evidently only one of the other 2,049 passengers was aware of what had happened, and he wasn't telling anybody.

Bastard, Joey thought.

How does Hiaasen send us a signal not of distress but of mirth? With his choice of words. What would be your feeling if you were plunging toward the sea from a deck railing many stories high? Joey feels "dumbfounded." Her first thought on hitting the water is "I married an asshole." What's funny here is the contrast of Joey's dire situation with her dry, understated attitude. The technique is simple.