Swell
I have come to realize that merely remaining alive is more of an achievement than I expected.
A lot of Orange Whippey’s acquaintances do their best to prove his point, in Corwin Ericson‘s debut novel, Swell.
Whippey is a latter-day Candide being chased around the worst of all possible islands. He is stranded among lampreys; tossed off a rusting naval vessel; seen “courting deep vein thrombosis”; suspected of kidnapping; abducted, himself; and more than capable of getting and losing the girl. Over and over.
He both deplores and deploys his gullibility in the dodgy breezes of a fictional island called Bismuth. For all Ericson’s Thor-thumping references to Scandinavian lore and “whale roads,” Whippey’s stark awareness of his own faults fans a pertinent line of faith: but for the grace of God, we could all end up, as Whippey does, without coffee or pants.
A bro’s bard
The most seminal accomplishment here is an unerring ear for guy talk, a pal’s patois of such secure consistency that Whippey can appreciate and describe the most exquisite, garden-party menu without losing his grip on the correct libation.
Is there more wine? Different wine?
Do you mean beer?
Yes, please.
In the bed-head vocabulary of a wry intellectual buddy, here’s Whippey explaining his hatred of work.
The lords of dawn are men such as Mr. Lucy. Their boats and trucks scrub away the shadows before them each morning, and they bide their time in the empty hours fashioning yokes and manacles for the unwary who stumble into their toils. They remember when dawn was hours earlier and when they had to kill a hundred Nazis every morning just to get to the percolator. They knew that if every young man in this God-fearing country would just get up at 5:30 AM and perform a modest flag ceremony, the upwelling of patriotism and personal pride would hasten Judgment Day upon us and we could get an early start on adoring Jesus in the afterlife before the tourists arrived.
And in the best-boy tradition of a doubtless Thomas, it’s all in Whippey’s head:
I’d spent years cultivating the belief that this woman was my cousin. If she were my cousin, I could steal a few peeks now and then and continue to admire the way she’d never lost her youthful roundness, the curves that turn to crags and angles so quickly on so many islanders. I could sleep over on her and Mitchell’s couch, and we could shuffle around each other in our underwear in the morning without too much fuss. If Angie were my cousin, the fact that toenail polish matched her lipstick and her habit of wearing only a sweatshirt, a bathing suit, and a kerchief for half the summer would merely be cute and practical; the way her brown pupils contrasted with the whites of her eyes in the same manner that her tan line contrasted with her pale skin when her suit slipped a little off her hip wouldn’t fixate me at all.
Phrases turned here
Ericson has every reason to be proud of his knack for worldly wordplay. When he summons up the courage of that intelligence, he sings to his reader in chanteys of bunk-bed bunkum, flattering you with his assumption of your savvy.
- Whippey, who spends time watching “Jeopardy,” nicknames two accomplices Ronco and Franklin Mint.
- When co-opted into a security breach at a U.S. military installation, he tells you, “I had the strong sense that we were risking a fully immersive experience at the waterboarding spa in Gitmo.”
- When a Korean sidekick tries to sound cool with a bad Caribbean dialect, “No worries, mon,” the Yankee Whippey corrects him. “Wrong Island. We’re the one with the worries.”
- “The Jewish North American Indian tribe are the Mormons, yes?” that same Korean asks later. Whippey answers, “I think the Mormons are like the Celtics, all white until a few decades ago.”
- Even the very last page of the book has a fond, one-word wink to push you off from the dock. I’ll let you find it.
Such quick arcs of spin and recognition are what make Swell swell, and they work when Ericson trusts you to keep up.
“His cousin had regretted wearing denim cut-offs when he was a beach extra in the film of the book,” Whippey tells us. Then, without ever spelling out which book he’s jawing about—but you’ll know—Ericson slips as easily into a dark reverie as Whippey squirms into a fishing boat’s “communal clothing.”
Men can only be true men among monsters. A German literary critical term for masculine monster lust would be apt. Men love their monsters; in the end they explode together. Only the men most full of doubt and words outlive their monsters, and it is an unbearable burden for them.
Sometimes, Ericson overreaches. He surfaces such phrases as “numinous puissance,” which may send you scrambling below decks for your dictionary. I was glad to test out my new Kindle Fire with this book, stabbing away at its glowing surface for definitions. Most of them are findable. A few will lead you on a wild word chase.
And sometimes, Ericson-as-Voltaire simply is giving you his own special deadpan gloss:
Gaiety is actually the abbreviation of a much longer Indian name that supposedly means “that island over there.”
Corwin Ericson's "Swell" is set on and around the fictional Bismuth Island off the northern Atlantic seaboard. Illustrated by Lindsey Tibbott and Rachel Blowen, designed by David Stone.
Colder feet
So when does Ericson lose his nerve? Never in Guyland. And not in his jargon-juggling, either.
No, it shows up first in a gradual erosion of that trust of his reader. Halfway through the book, he explains “island time” to us. We were moseying along just fine without the help.
Then the writer’s insecurity eases into view more regularly, a sandbar at each afternoon’s low tide. For example, you find yourself wandering into the brambles of a plot recap, Whippey taking stock of his fellow characters, reveals himself too plainly the alter ego of his author, “in search of a good place to lay out our metaphorical blanket.”
I was somewhat convinced that I had once felt a strong sense of purpose and was currently experiencing mission drift.
So says Whippey. But it’s Ericson who starts to drift.
His story, which I won’t give away, shallows out into an overplayed myth-meets-modernity fable. We find that Ericson is not above a little eco-lecturing about melting Arctic ice. Mankind’s treatment of whales comes in for a dressing down, too: “Ever since the Industrial Revolution, we’d been doing our best to drive them insane by transforming the ocean into a clanging discordia of grinding propellers, sonic booms, cable buzz, and every other sound.”
And in the end, an unintended parable washes ashore: wit and misadventure don’t soften the need for a meaningful landing.
Ericson doesn’t quite manage his own swell cleverness expertly enough to send you out humming his purpose. Likened in some advance press materials as akin to Neil Gaiman’s work, I think I’d place Swell closer to good Monty Python. On the other side of the pond, Whippey would be jumping into a boat to go see Jean-Paul Satre. As it is, he risks living on the mainland only for college but can’t hack it:
I just couldn’t take it any longer in America. The continent was as big and stupid as my aunt’s hairdo and my other uncle’s gut.
By the time you’re paddling along at about 75 percent of the book’s swim, you’ll be realizing that several of the most promising characters introduced along the way never amount to a cairn of shells. Most prominent among them—or not among them, as it were—is Donny, who is announced on Page 1, full-mooned and tattooed, as Whippey’s brother in workaday oppression. He soon is locked away in a cabin for most of the book, a barely realized no-show.
Similarly, a documentary producer somehow gets herself a pointless boat ride across some of Ericson’s tallest tales. The only worthwhile catch of that day is one of those finely wrought guy-quips from Whippey about the way this woman carries her sneakers leaving the boat:
I told myself it was her way of telling me that the key was under the mat, for later.
Errors in the Kindle edition
Ericson also must fight the shoddy riptide of flawed production we’re seeing in so much new work these days. His text is blemished by preventable goofs.
Sometimes, these are authorial. Ericson uses the word “past” for “passed”; the word “lay” for “lie” (twice, by my count); “complimentary” for “complementary.” These are the gaffes for which God gave us editors. Dark Coast Press of Seattle owes Ericson a better job of editing if, indeed, its publishing services include that function.
In other cases, the errors are, again as we’re seeing too frequently, the apparent result of format conversion going wrong. In this Moby on the way to .mobi:
- the opening two words of chapters are stuck together,
- there are repetitions of articles, as in this phrase (underline mine): “Korean Ill John, was wearing a a black nylon jacket,”
- curious gaps open in the text from time to time,
- one character’s answer frequently is stuck in the same paragraph as another character’s question, and
- even the book’s webpage at Dark Coast has a glaring error in its main description of the book: the major character Snorri’s name is misspelled (Snoori) once. And that block of text runs again, error and all, as Bookseller Information, a sad redundancy on the same page.
For neither author nor reader is this good enough. For a writer of Ericson’s calibre and credentials as the former managing editor of the Massachusetts Review, this is unacceptable.
In Dark Coast’s favor, I’d like to point out the superb cover design by Chris Jordan with Charlie Potter. Even a fun opening letter-as-prologue to the book arrives on sweetly executed Bismuth Tourism Council stationery.
Fresh off the boat
The good news is that this is a fine, singular voice. When not tearing his passions to tatters and when not tripped up by such publishing gaffes as we see here, Ericson can serenade you with long, spiraling chorales of nerve-jangling ingenuity. This man can write to Greenland and back.
It is for that voice—and for Ericson’s slick ability to nab a six-pack of authentically male eloquence—that the “unboxed” rating on this novel is coming in at a handsome five of six stars.
The slightly lesser overall score should not be taken as a reason to stay away. Just the opposite. I hope you’ll read Swell for yourself, make up your own mind about it. See if you don’t agree that we’re hearing from a talent whose first body-surfing exercise may scrape the bottom at times, but who’s likable and likely to find his legs in coming projects.
Swell is a whale of a harbinger of good things to come from Corwin Ericson.
Overall rating:
Unboxed rating:
Wow–just Wow! Very cool review, Porter–and one that truly entices me to try this “guy” book…I mean, “I just couldn’t take it any longer in America. The continent was as big and stupid as my aunt’s hairdo and my other uncle’s gut.” I’m in!
Dee DeTarsio´s last blog post ..Dialogues With The Devil
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Hey, thanks, Dee, and I’m glad that’s your reaction. To tell you the truth, women will love “Swell” — they’re only laughing with us, guys, not at us. Some memorable, strong characters of both genders, and Ericson’s nonstop phrase-turning. It’s the book to be shipwrecked with this year. Thanks for commenting!
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How appropriate, that the guy who studies ‘Writing on the Ether’ brings us ethereal wordplay with an ‘unerring ear for guy-talk.’ Beer me, I’m ordering my copy today.
Seriously, Porter, I hope I enjoy reading Swell as much as I enjoyed reading this review. Great job!
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Thanks, Vaughn, hope you do enjoy Swell, let me know, some real talent being heard from on THAT Ether.
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What a character, or should I say imagination! Wonder what kind of “different wine” Ericson drinks?
Thank you, Porter, for the whale of a tale.
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My pleasure, Larramie, glad you enjoyed it. Give the book a try if you have a chance -
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“They remember when dawn was hours earlier and when they had to kill a hundred Nazis every morning just to get to the percolator. They knew that if every young man in this God-fearing country would just get up at 5:30 AM and perform a modest flag ceremony, the upwelling of patriotism and personal pride would hasten Judgment Day upon us and we could get an early start on adoring Jesus in the afterlife before the tourists arrived.”
This bit left me gasping in admiration. Writers who can collapse incisive observations with deft, even looney humor are rare, rarer still is one who can weave the one-liners into a coherent story. Your review seems to suggest Ericson can mostly do it. I’ve got to check this one out.
Odd that the publisher would let the Kindle edition go into the world with errors, but there’s a lot that’s odd about the e-book industry right now, so I’m not holding it against the author.
FANTASTIC review, Porter.
Kathleen Bolton´s last blog post ..Swell
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You’ve picked out my favorite passage, Kath! Isn’t that reference to the percolator amazing? Ericson is truly gifted and I feel sure is on the edge of finding the perfect balance between his voice’s ingenuity and the structural demands of his work.
You’re exactly right about the publishing errors, too, although I would add, as well, that I feel sure Dark Coast Press’ folks never got up determined to get out a flawed Kindle edition, either. (And mind you, the other editions may be clean as a whistle, I’ve read it only on Kindle.) It’s an industry-wide struggle, and I feel that as readers, we have to simply keep the heat on every part of the business so that we don’t start losing major readership to slipshod craft and technology. As you know, there’s already an anguished discussion about this, and not just in electronic publishing but also in print editions, particularly now that so much self-publishing is under way. Let’s hope we can see more progress toward quality. And I’d be delighted to hear from Dark Coast Press, too, as well as from Ericson, on their experience of the publishing process here.
Bottom line, however, SWELL is swell, and I’m so glad we can include Corwin Ericson’s work here at Reader Unboxed! Thanks!
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As everything that is going on with the digital transition, I feel that there’s got to be a cottage industry starting up somewhere for copy editing services for e-books. Simple mistakes are irritating for the reader, but they are the hardest ones to catch for the writer, it seems.
A good editor would also keep the excessive navel gazing and extraneous characters in check. But the name of the protagonist is ORANGE WHIPPANY which makes me weep with envy and makes me crave an Orange Julius, all good things.
Kathleen Bolton´s last blog post ..Swell
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Precisely, Kath, and I’m hoping to get at some of this issue of digital conversion for electronic editions and editorial concerns in “Writing on the Ether” this week (should run on Wednesday 23 November to beat the turkeys to the punch!). There’s a fundamental issue there that many industries, not just publishing, have had to contend with. I watched it roll through (and over) many newsrooms, for example, and believe it or not, there’s a dreadfully logical problem behind it, too. So more ahead on that topic.
And as for that fantastic name, you’ll find that Ericson is a master at this. One element of his novel’s world is a nearly spiritual invocation of secret nicknames, and he’s got a terrific knack for naming boats, in particular, one grand example being the Wendy’s Mom.
In talking about Orange Whippey’s name, he has Orange, himself, explain it this way:
My favorite part of that is “rhyme-proof.” As in look out for kids at school.
-p.
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Now, this is what I call a book review. I appreciate the care & amount of work you put into this. As a reader, it really helps me know what to expect & whether it’s the kind of book I would like (answer: probably). As a writer, I would love to see this kind of close reading and insightful analysis turned to my books (it does happen from time to time (although most reviews, even glowing ones, are of the 5 or 6 sentences on Amazon or Goodreads variety)).
I’ll ask my wife to have her library buy a copy of Swell & report back after I’ve read it. (Nice thing about being married to a librarian. I can usually help put a few dollars in an author’s pocket & gain them some exposure without expending my own dough. One has to use this “pull” judiciously, of course, but a nice review like this does substantiate the argument that the library should buy a copy. My wife does have a boss & non-infinite budget, after all.)
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Well, John, I can return the compliment — this is what I call a comment.
I’d be lucky to have such generous and welcoming responses to every review I wrote. And, for that matter, I’d be very interested in seeing your work. My area is literary fiction, so do keep me abreast of something you have coming out, by all means, if you’re working in that vein. This is the sort of critique I’ve been doing across many arts — theatre, modern dance, visual arts, classical music, and literature — since just after the Magna Carta or so. It’s what they trained us for back in the day. And when the work at hand is something as promising as a new voice like Corwin Ericson’s, it’s a treat — as is writing for Reader Unboxed where serious reviews and that search for the “unboxed” factor are valued.
And I’m doubly chuffed to know that you might be able to persuade your librarian wife to get it for her library! That is, indeed, one of the greatest routes to discoverability a book can have, and an author like Ericson couldn’t be luckier than to have his debut picked up for library collections, the more the better. I hope that SWELL will be within the acquisition budget there and I think I can predict it to be quite a popular entry in the stacks — you might want to get your name on it before it arrives and word-of-mouth starts moving it around, probably with such phrases as “reminds me of “Hitchhiker’s Guide” and such.
Thanks again for the kind words and eager uptake, thoroughly appreciated. All the best with your own writing!
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“Swell” is definitely one of the more ‘fun’ novels I’ve read … maybe ever? Ericson has a refreshing wit and the characters were strong and relatable to people I knew growing up in a boatbuilding town on the Puget Sound. I think you do a great job here Porter – I had many of the very same thoughts while reading the book – and I walked away from “Swell” feeling like I read something refreshingly creative. While you had the opportunity to test out your Kindle dictionary, I was glued to my iPhone dictionary and wondering had I access to this technology as a kid, would I have still gone to a state school? I’ll echo John Sundman and say that I really appreciate the time you put into this book review. I’ll also say that I hope some of the finer points don’t discourage any of your readers from diving into “Swell.” I did have the opportunity to meet the publisher from Dark Coast recently – he’s an extraordinarily admirable guy and I’d love to see a feature on him somewhere. I believe this is one of their first books?
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Hey, Mike, thanks for the excellent comment and friendly reception of my review. I’m so glad you’ve read SWELL, too, and enjoyed it as much as I did. It’s really the kind of book you want to let people know about, isn’t it? You’re right, too, that in serious critical work, you risk at times making someone feel that any imperfections could be a reason not to read. Far from it in this instance. Especially in the case of SWELL, even the nuances of what some will deem a not-so successful bit are part of the charm and they help shape the pleasure of the read. In short, it’s packed with a humanity you can almost feel breathing next to you at times, full of life. You want this book to win.
And I’m glad to say that I’ve now been in touch with the publisher, too, Aaron Talwar of Dark Coast Press, and we’ve been having a great exchange. Look for something about that in my column tomorrow at JaneFriedman.com — certainly, this is a publisher bringing forth a welcome new talent.
Thanks again and keep that iPhone dictionary ready, I hope we’ll have something else from Ericson before long!
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Wow! As the author, I suppose it’s bad form to comment on a review, but I wanted to say I really enjoyed and appreciated reading this. You’re quite the phrase maker yourself: “a six-pack of authentically male eloquence”–I’m going to tape that to my fridge. Also, I caught that sly pun in “deadpan gloss”! Candide was certainly an inspiration for Swell and the character Orange.
I’ve never seen a review written in this style before. I was interested in the deep reading it received and appreciated your comments on both the novel and its editorship.
These comments are great too. I loved reading the dialogue between you and your readers about Swell. To be frank, as a writer, this is what I’m hungry for–to eavesdrop on conversations about Swell.
I can make some general responses:
One of the great pleasures of writing this was coming up with names. I had fun naming the characters and boats and whatever else would hold still long enough to get a proper name. Orange and Whippey (I like “Whippany” from Kathleen Bolton’s comment–like a whipped epiphany) are indeed good old colonial-era coastal names, brought over from England, probably.
It’s true: sometimes we’re lucky just to have coffee and pants. As the poet James Tate wrote in “Same as You,” “I put my pants on one day at a time.”
I love being led around the dictionary, being seduced by the sexy words–their concatenations, their root-words. They lead me to foolishness usually, but sometimes discovery and wisdom.
I live in a digital desert, a hilltop town in rural western Massachusetts. I’m sitting in the town library now because it’s my only source of semi-high-speed internet access. Few of my neighbors have cell phone coverage. There’s nothing but dial-up internet access. I write this in order to say I don’t have a Kindle. I’ve never seen Swell or any other book on an e-reader, and I have no idea what editorial processes occurred to get Swell on Kindle.
I’ve asked a number of people what books they have on their various devices, and a surprising number of people carry around Moby-Dick.
On libraries: Because I’m sitting in my local one right now and adore the librarian, Rosie, I just showed her the comments about libraries–she really appreciated seeing them.
I really enjoyed working with the publisher Dark Coast in Seattle. I learned an awful lot about book culture in other parts of the US when I traveled recently from Oakland through Portland to Seattle. It was pretty amazing to see a crowd fill a bar on a Friday night in downtown Seattle for a book release party. Dark Coast and that city seemed to be genuinely hungry for and supportive of new books. Maybe getting out from under the shadow of Dickinson and Melville is more liberating than I’d thought previously.
Swell is full of different wines than wine. The author is grateful he has not yet had to drink “old milk,” and hopes it doesn’t really exist.
I’m so glad people are reading (and writing about) Swell!
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Corwin, no bad form whatever, I’m delighted to have your comment here, welcome, and grateful for your kind words. How good that you caught my voltairean wave going by, a sharp eye on the critical horizon.
I can return the appreciation. It’s not always that a new text has the depth of SWELL, and sometimes the attempt at deeper reading touches bottom around the middle of Chapter Two. Not so here, obviously, and there are many more things of real reach and scope than I could get at in this write. Your cross-currents of social commentary, pop satire, and human whimsy work as artful layerings, long-”whipped epiphanies” of the kinds each of us duffels along the way.
I’m carrying around great collops of new vocabulary, thanks to you, eager to terrify my associates with the wonders of your dictionary.
I’m glad to say that I’ve heard from your Aaron Talwar at Dark Coast Press, a really great correspondence, and in fact I’ve just posted something about that in my weekly column, “Writing on the Ether” at Jane Friedman’s terrific site. Normally it’s a Thursday column but turkeys, incoming, persuaded us to go a day early. This link will take you to the specific volume of the Ether given over to SWELL
There’s also a bit about libraries on the Ether, specifically at this link. Could you pass that on to your Rosie? I believe she’ll find it interesting, maybe infuriating; I’d stand back a foot or two during her initial inspection. Right up your alley. There’s a large sea bird involved.
Having been in Portland for a writers’ conference in August, I know the bookish energy you’re talking about there and in Seattle. Not the same color or tempo as what we know on the East Coast and in New York, especially.
i agree, such fine comments here, not mine but many from my reviewing associates here at Reader Unboxed. Grand, creative people, who also love authorial derring-do. I’m herding them like your smaller whales toward your book in between their own review assignments.
.
And it’s our loss, really, that you’re stuck in that digital desert without good connectivity, we could use more of your verbal wiles in the wilds of the gabbling community called the publishing industry. Not since Aeschylus has such drama been played out both in matinee and evening shows daily. Where’s a deus ex machina when we need one?
As you say, one day at a time.
Thank you again for responding. Too many writers are afraid to engage, although they’re right to choose their moments carefully. Normally, the ones who go down first to that moiled (thank you) sea are furiously objecting to less felicitous appraisals, which is precisely the time not to venture forth. Your timing, and your terms of engagement, are on perfect pitch. And I’m looking forward to hearing more about your deserved SWELL success.
Cheers,
-p.
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Thanks for dropping by, Corwin, and for being so open about the reviewing process. I haven’t read the book yet, but even the briefest tidbits conjured up hardy, sea-scoured New Englanders.
Apologies on Whippey/Whippany mix up. But now that I know that Whippany is a figment of my own mind, Imma stealing it.
Best of all good luck on your debut and future works!
Kathleen Bolton´s last blog post ..The Ninth Wife by Amy Stolls
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What a beautifully written review of what sounds like a marvelous book. It definitely goes on my list. (I’m especially intrigued since I spent my childhood summers on an island off the coast of Maine. They’re strange microcosms.) I’m so glad your tweet sent me here. I don’t know why I haven’t been aware of Reader Unboxed, but I’ll now make regular visits. I love the fact there’s a 6-star system. I think that will solve many of the problems of “star inflation” that’s happened with the Amazon reviews.
I also think it’s very useful to point out the formatting errors and typos. The great thing about ebooks is that they can be fixed without much trouble. (The bad thing is this seems to make publishers edit them with less care.)
I understand that glitches can happen on one device, but not another. Reading on tablets has been a problem for several of my friends who say the same book has no problems on a standard Kindle. But a Kindle Fire should be identical to the Kindle, so the ones you point out sound like glitches in the original file.
Anne R. Allen´s last blog post ..Confessions of a Big Six Editor: The Triumph of the Slush Pile
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Thanks, Anne, great to have your comment here and thanks for reading about SWELL, so glad you’re interested in reading it. You’ll find it worthwhile, I’m sure!
Yeah, the formatting issues problem — which publisher Dark Coast Press is working to address in this case — is made all the trickier, as you say, because format glitches in one edition won’t show up in another.
Still, when publishers out-source their conversions, as happened here and as happens in so many cases, the conversion people need to be able to assure publisher, author and reader that errors will be chased down and fixed. And unfortunately, this clearly doesn’t happen all the time. What’s more, I think such quality control isn’t always in place simply because the conversion people don’t have the editorial training or perspective of an author and publisher. Which puts the responsibility for proofing on the publisher and author. And which puts the responsibility for getting it right, in the first place, back on the conversion-making party. In a tech shop, then, we’re looking at an empty chair, a job waiting unfilled: in-house editor.
I imagine that everybody involved in doing the basically technical job of converting text from one format to another doesn’t want to do the work to learn what editors, author, publishers, and good readers know about properly presented text. And that’s a problem. Anyone who’s looking to hand over a conversion job to an outside house needs to know whether that house will guarantee that conversion errors aren’t the result — and, for my money, that means that such an outfit has an editorialist on the team, scrutinizing each conversion and zapping errors before the thing gets out into the world marred by such blemishes.
It’s another element of the current, exhausting, and frequently maddening transition of publishing, huh?
-p.
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