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Summary
Summary
"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 Girlis a voyage into the darkest depths of carny life--and, remarkably, a tender love story to boot.
Reviews (1)
Kirkus Review
"She was Frigidaire cool, and I wanted her bad." The Postman Always Rings Twice? Double Indemnity? No, Carnahan, a James M. Cain knockoff who knows the female of the species to be very dangerous. Cain invented the novel that takes a profession--law, insurance--as deep background for a thriller. Here, Carnahan offers a deep understanding of life in a failing big-top circus. Bailey Quinn, 22, tossed out of college in his junior year, takes up "copping free"--or robbing stores by cutting through windows. He's also into the big con, with plans to make a major theft, then return to college. And he's a drug addict and drunk. He lands a summer job with a traveling circus that can't always meet its payroll and is managed by an alcoholic owner who turns over management to the Freaks. The Freaks have a clear head for beating taxes by keeping the circus's take in hard cash. Among them: the serpent girl, a busty and beautiful sexpot with no legs, one missing arm, and one short arm with a flipper, who is married to a mentally stunted giant. (Is this the '30s classic flick Freaks? William Lindsay Greshman's Nightmare Alley?) Bailey decides to rob the circus on the night before the weekly cash intake is shorted by the Freaks and banked. To find out which night that is, he romances the serpent girl. But he also falls for Sissy, a drug addict with wrecked veins but three years clean and sober, who takes him to an AA meeting that melts him to tears. "She had disappeared into the burning land of damage and risen again, whole and somehow fortified, like porcelain from the kiln. I was still somewhere deep in the smoldering wreckage. The only thing I could do was drag her back in; there was no potential upside to time spent with me." First-novelist Carnahan is a stylist who upgrades pulp to the Turkish-coffee richness of Cain, Hammett, and Chandler. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
