Screwed
by Eoin Colfer
Hardcover, 304 pg.
Overlook Hardcover, 2013
Read: Jan. 27-31, 2014
I saw that the sequel to Colfer’s Plugged was out, and I had a dim recollection that I enjoyed Plugged (and can look up my rating on Goodreads), but I can’t remember a lick of it. Which bothered me, but I figure it’ll come back to me with some work — so I put a reserve on it at the library. When I went to pick it up, I still couldn’t remember anything about its predecessor, which still bugged me. I read the jacket copy — doesn’t help, and now it’s driving me crazy. I read the first two pages — nothing. But at the bottom of the second page I read:
And those eyes? Big and blue, rimmed with way too much eyeliner. Men have climbed into hollow wooden horses for eyes like that.
With lines like that, who cares what I remembered? This is a great read, so much fun, and laugh out loud funny when you’re not horrified by the violence. Colfer writes like a Don Winslow who hasn’t slept in a week thanks to existing on a truly inhuman amount of energy drinks.
It’s not long after that observation that the tide starts to turn for Daniel McEvoy, our narrator. The two-bit gangster he angered in Plugged has decided on a way for McEvoy to start to make things right between them. Sure, it’s probably just a set-up, but what choice does he have? Especially with his best friend and the owner of those eyes serving as handy targets.
Before he gets the chance to figure out just what’s going on, Daniel stumbles across his long-lost aunt (in the middle of a decades-long bender), his grandfather’s fourth (or so, I don’t remember exactly) wife, a young wanna-be wiseguy, the wanna-be’s actual wiseguy henchman, the would-be gangster, a couple of corrupt policemen, a masked assassin, a killer lightning bolt, a car at the bottom of the river, and a few other obstacles. Daniel deals with each of these with a combination of world-weary cynicism, gallows humor, an unexpected romanticism with a trace of optimism and lethal force. The latter is really what carries the day, obviously, but it’s the rest that makes reading his exploits worth it — and darn enjoyable.
For example, towards the end of the book, Daniel makes this aside:
The Key to staying alive until you die is to not get yourself killed.
I saved this nugget till close to the end on account of how bleeding obvious it reads, which might bring on a little gnashing of teeth. But to most people not getting yourself killed involves nothing more than just doing what you’re already doing and maybe cutting down on mayonnaise, which is more or less liquid fat.
All Daniel wants to do is hang out with his friends, make some money with the casino/bar he and a partner are opening, and maybe, juuuust maybe pursue a romance. When describing some of the jokes he and his friend are making rather than deal with the harsh reality of their situation, he says
. . . Zeb and I spend a lot of our free time, as two single middle-aged bucks, watching TV. How cool and edgy is that? Most of our references are pop culture and our favorites at the moment are old episodes of the egregiously canceled shows Terriers and Deadwood.
Colfer buys himself and extra half-star or more for name-dropping Terriers and complaining about its cancellation — twice!!*
When you boil things down in the end, Daniel McEvoy is a basically decent man who’s seen and done things that no one should. Which prepares him (possibly makes him seek out) more of the same now. Which doesn’t change the fact that he’s really a good Irish man who likes telling a story and loves to play with language — even if the story (and his life) end up being hyper-violent and he has a propensity for letting his metaphors run out of control. Grab Plugged for context if you want, but definitely grab Screwed and buckle-in for a fun ride.
One more quotation that doesn’t fit anywhere, but made me chuckle enough to copy it down:
[I]f you want to see teenagers crap themselves laughing, try explaining what a pager used to be. You tell ’em about cassette tapes and they think you’re only a lying, old Depends-wearing motherfucker.
The following is a transcript of a conversation I had with Jason’s nephew:
Me: The songs were pressed onto a long tape. Six songs per side, then you turned it over.
Nephew: Turned what over?
Me: The tape in the machine, but you had to be careful or the machine would eat the tape and you’d have to straighten it out with a pencil.
Nephew: Fuck off, Gandalf. You’re making this shit up.
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* Not entirely true. It was my plan early on, but the book turned out to be too good to require that.
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