Clownfish Blues: A Novel (Serge Storms)

Mr Dorsey's weakest novel in the series. Usually I read books in at most one or two settings. Plots are usually disjointed with a purpose. This one was just disjointed. Overall not a very funny book.

I managed to get halfway into this book and realized that I just couldn't go further. This book has to be one of the silliest pieces of prose ever written. There was a time when Mr Dorsey wrote with genuine humor but this isn't one of them. This "story"jumps all over the place.

I could subtitle this review of CLOWNFISH BLUES “In Praise of Formula Writing.” One could say with some degree of accuracy that author Tim Dorsey has been writing the same novel over and over since he first conceived of Serge A. Storms, the madcap urban nomad who travels up, down, across and over the great state of Florida. One could also say with total and unadulterated accuracy that Dorsey has done so without actually repeating himself. He has achieved this apparent contradiction by doing one big thing and many little things well in each and every installment.

Serge has not appreciably evolved over the course of 20 novels; Dorsey completed his character right from the start and thankfully has stuck with that template. The many little things the author does well? The mayhem that permeates every book; Serge’s ability to come up with new and inventive ways to dispatch the rude, unruly, greedy and criminal who cross his path; Serge’s relationship with his best friend and fellow traveler, the eternally toasted Coleman; the humor, dark and otherwise; and Dorsey’s meticulously collected and carefully researched Florida trivia, which he delivers in new and heaping batches every year.

Actually, make the latter the second big thing he does well. One could (and should) read the Storm books for the trivia alone. I keep committing myself to going back over the books that comprise the series and pulling each and every nugget from them that I can find, with the aim of someday doing an extended Serge pilgrimage that covers the state. Maybe someday. Think of Dorsey as a master chef who uses the same ingredients to serve up the same dish, yet makes it taste differently from what has come before. It’s a balancing act that he has mastered over the course of two decades.

The newly published CLOWNFISH BLUES is more of the same, which is a good thing, a wonderful thing, actually. Start with the Prologue, which is basically a (mostly) benevolent Hieronymus Bosch triptych and includes everything: attorneys who are shadier than their clients (and some upright lawyers, too), Lotto fever, Serge and Coleman working retail, and a murder. You get your money’s worth within the book’s first few pages, when Dorsey is just getting warmed up. Oh, there are a bunch of laughs thrown in as well, which will have you howling and pounding the table, yelling “YES! YES!” and “OH NO!”, occasionally about the same sentence.

The element that puts Serge and Coleman behind the wheel and on the road in CLOWNFISH BLUES is “Route 66,” the 1960s television show that, in retrospect, featured a benevolent and straight-arrow version of Serge and Coleman on the legendary U.S. highway, quietly helping people they encountered and righting wrongs in, shall we say, a more conventional way than the protagonists of Dorsey’s long-running series. Coleman and Serge may be the spiritual descendants of Tod Stiles and Buz Murdock (later to be replaced by Lincoln Case), as well as the offspring no one wants to talk about (or save a seat at the table for) during Thanksgiving dinner. But the lineage cannot be denied, and Serge finds another link between himself and Coleman and the legendary TV series, which gets them crisscrossing the state and inadvertently getting tied up in a lottery corruption scheme in the process.

This puts our guys at odds with everyone from money launderers for drug cartels to crooked shopkeepers and even more crooked investors. Of course, it also puts that aggregation of folks --- who work against each other as much as with each other --- at odds with Serge and Col...well, with Serge, anyway. Coleman, as always, is along for the ride and the substances, even as he manages to contribute positively when the chips are down, even if it’s by accident. If you’re new to the series and wondering who to bet on, longtime readers will tell you: Bet on Serge and Coleman, as well as the unlikely, if very welcome, allies they acquire along the way.

After reading CLOWNFISH BLUES, you will never again stand in line at a convenience store checkout counter while a misguided soul buys $20 worth of multi-state lottery tickets or plays four sad numbers on the state lottery --- backed, boxed and straight --- without wishing to channel Serge by explaining to the poor gambler the error of his or her ways. You also will learn all you need to know about something called “worm grunting” (it’s not as bad as it sounds) and a town that actually has a festival dedicated to it, as well as a bunch of other things about Florida, rustic cooking, and just about everything else. Of utmost importance, though, is that you will be mightily entertained.

Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub

From the publisher: If you’re loud and proud Floridian Serge A. Storms, how do you follow up on your very own remake of Easy Rider? You shoot your own “episodes” of your favorite classic television show, Route 66! With Coleman riding shotgun, Serge is rolling down the highway of his dreams in a vintage silver Corvette. It doesn’t matter that the actual Route 66 doesn’t pass through Florida, for Serge discovers that a dozen episodes near the show’s end were filmed (really!) in his beloved home state. So for Serge and the always toked and stoked Coleman, the Sunshine State is all the road you need to get your kicks. But their adventure traveling the byways of Florida’s underbelly is about to take a detour. Someone is trying to tilt the odds in the state lottery amid a long line of huge jackpots, resulting in more chaos than any hurricane season. Soon every shady character wants in - - crooked bodega owners, drug cartels laundering money, and venture capitalists trying to win one for the mathletes. They’re also gambling with their lives, because when Serge and Coleman get hip to this timely (and very lucrative) trip, there’s no telling whose number is up next. Throw in Brook Campanella, Serge’s old flame, as well as the perpetually star-crossed Reevis Tome, and it’s a sure bet that the ever lucky Serge will hit it big.

This is the 20th book in the series, and I have to state right up front that it kept a perpetual smile on my face from page 1. I really needed a break from a spate of books filled with violence, blood and gore, and news cycles that would be difficult to top for their outlandish details of the current political climate. But the author has managed to produce just that! We are told that “there are parts of greater Miami where even crime doesn’t pay.” The novel jumps around a lot, kinda like Serge and Coleman (his life-long friend, generally “stoned and tipsy”), with Serge driving a “genuine 1964 Corvette Stingray, just like Martin Milner drove in the third season of Route 66. For Serge and Coleman, it’s all about Route 66.”

The book is filled with recurring scenes such as, e.g., worm-grunting searches [no, I never heard of it before either], and “when the hucksters and hoopla dissipated, a tastefully quaint community accidentally emerged from the fog of failed avarice;” we meet a cable news cameraman named Gunter Klieglyte, and we find “a bicyclist with dangling iguanas, looking in the rearview mirror as officers interviewed Korean saloon workers, an Australian film crew, Marilyn Monroe and JFK, while a man in a camo hat ran through a dozen bodies chasing a small alligator . . . twenty-four-hour pedestrians moving with less verve and direction than zombies . . . sidewalks full of businesspeople on lunch and aimless people on parole… a dead guy hanging from a billboard and another with his head wrapped in scratch-offs.”

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, which is, as you might have guessed, recommended.

Some mental images can't be unseen. In this case, two yiffing sign spinners in full uniform. Of course this bizarre happening is not unusual in a Serge Storms novel, as he manages to uncover the trendy and work it into a narrative as if it might even be normal.

You remember Serge? He's the fellow who kills those who would harm Florida or Floridians, usually in creative fashion to match the "crime" but always leaving them a potential out that rarely works. I used to refer to Serge as a serial killer but it turns out he takes umbrage at that as I found out in this latest of Dorsey's madcap series. According to Serge, "Serial killers are sick, obsessive losers who will never stop until they die or get arrested. Sequential killers, on the other hand, just happen to be the only person around when action is required." "A sequential killer never intends to kill again - it's just that the cosmic hand of responsibility sometimes keeps picking the same person." So, sorry, Serge, I'll refer to you as sequential from now on.

It has become a bit of an annual ritual. Run down to the book store in January to meet up with Tim Dorsey and grab an autographed copy or two of his new release. This one centers on dishonest landlords, weird doings with the state lottery, and Serge's attempts, along with his drug addled sidekick Coleman to duplicate some of the last episodes of "Route 66" that were actually filmed in Florida. As always, one picks up some delicious Florida trivia and geography and exposure to some of the most ingenious plotting devices and bizarre characters in fiction.

Dorsey has to be one of the hardest working authors around. His website shows 57 signings in the two months since the publication. Keep it up Tim, enjoy you and the series!

3.5 Stars

Tim Dorsey's yearly novel concerning Serge Storms usually hits the nail on the head for wacky comedy, entertaining characters, and fun settings. The very Tarantino style of story telling is unique and the fact there are so many minor recurring characters makes reading the whole series worthwhile. That said, these books can occasionally miss the mark. I don't think Clownfish Blues entirely misses the mark, but last years Coconut Cowboy was definitely better.

In this novel, Serge is creating his own Route 66 experience by working a new job every week (including hunting for worms and sign twirling) and doing it with a new romantic interest at each stop. Meanwhile, lottery fever has left a few characters from previous books in predicaments concerning the police, mobsters, a Marilyn Monroe drag queen, and a man who wants to trade his alligator for beer.

The issues I have with the book is that the plot wasn't entirely interesting and the humor wasn't quite as on-point as the previous book. That's one problem the series has is having an interesting plot but also maintaining the humor. Across twenty books, that's hard to do. There are some laugh-out-loud funny moments in this book, but I found that the majority came toward the end, leaving my first impressions of the book a tad underwhelming.

But despite that, the writing is still great, Serge is the literary equivalent to the superhero Deadpool (but funnier) and once the book got going, and especially the last hundred pages, I had a ton of fun. Serge and Coleman are always great company and this book is no exception to that.

If you haven't read a Serge book before, you can start anywhere, they're fairly self contained. You could try this one, but I think you'd have a better time with Coconut Cowboy first before trying this adventure.

Tim Dorsey provides another comedic gumshoe type gem out of his home state of Florida. As the summer heat of Miami slows the private investigation business down for P.I. Mahoney, two defrauders plan to change the dull days of sultriness into a hi-jinxed road trip. Coleman and Serge have chosen a new life style, both plan to team up and move to a new town every week and find employment, a Route 66 brand of lifestyle where there is havoc to play out each and every occasion. Dorsey uses his past career experience of newspaper reporting and editor skills to help churn out classic whimsical detective novels such as his latest, Clownfish Blues.

Florida is a gold mine for mysteries and quirky situations and characters.

But in order for "off the wall" to work, there must be a wall of normalcy to begin with. 

And, weird characters must have a likeability factor that makes their weirdness endearing.

Everyone and everything here is bizarre, and after 7% none of the characters were at all likeable or interesting.

The author seems to be trying to emulate Carl Hiaasen. He fails.

I gave up.

As always loved the book. Serge is the consumate antihero. Coleman comes along for the ride with the wacked out serial killer as a beautiful balance. The homicid al Floridaphile sets out on his ROUTE 66 adventure and encounters lotto fever, stalkers, old friends and Marilyn Monroe. Join him on another wild ride to fun and creative mayhem!!!

I read for entertainment, mostly, and this is the most entertaining book ever. I have lived in Florida my entire life and can appreciate the story and locations as though I was right there with the characters.
I will never understand how the author can come up with the stories but I'm grateful for people with such imaginations. These are believeable and fun stories and characters.

Just when you think the main characters, Serge and Coleman, are going to take you down the same road as in other novels they engage in ventures leaving you wondering, "How did Tim Dorsey came up with that?". If one is familiar with (or wants to become familiar with) Florida these two guys will take you to places that make memories come back to life. Creative, mysterious and fun to read.

Not my favorite read, struggled to keep with it, thought of quitting it several times. It just seemed to go on, and on, I didn't really get into any of the main characters. This was a genre I usually enjoy, this one just wasn't for me.

Another average book in the series. The last five or six books could all be reviewed about the same. Some are better than others but none are anywhere near the quality of Dorsey's first ten or twelve. The whole Route 66 thing didn't come off, the second killing wasn't warranted, and on and on........ It boils down to; the book wasn't funny. It's as simple as that.

Utter stupidity. I understand there is a need and a market for this style of book. We can't be serious all the time. We need things that are lighthearted. Variety is good. However, in terms of quality, this was a step down from the previous book, Coconut Cowboy. Not as much of a story here, mostly randon stupidity. I was fairly bored during many stretches of this book. This series may not be for me.