SWAMP GAS

A wildly satirical story of Louisiana politics that provides enough zany characters to fill a New Orleans bayou and keep even Yankees laughing out loud.

At a meeting of the Polish American Small Businessmen's Association, David Souchecki raises the eternal question that sets this roller-coaster debut novel in motion: Where are the famous southern Polish-Americans? Soucheki's cronies at Franky and Johnny's restaurant can't think of anyone except Stanley Kowalski (quickly dismissed as “fictional”) and Lana Pulaski, a bright, sharp-tongued medical malpractice attorney whose short stature and barmaid looks have kept her out of the big leagues. Though Lana styles her hair big and wears come-hither clothes, Soucheki and his associates think she’d make the perfect candidate for state attorney general because she's both an “ambulance chaser” who looks easily corruptible and an orphaned woman who can turn out the sympathy vote. Once the starting gun has sounded, Paolini trots out one loopy, likable character after another faster than you can snap a green bean in two, each one linked to the others by so many past crimes and secrets that she makes every Louisiana parish seem to swarm with more disenfranchised connections of one big, incestuous, and underhanded political family. Even though everyone has a unique agenda, and some seem to have a unique biology, Paolini, with her deadpan absurdist's vision, manages to wrestle a dark comedy of political manners out of such diverse specimens as a diamond-toothed skeleton in a shed; the murdered Dennis Herbert and his QVC-addicted wife; a recidivist car thief/heroin addict named Crouton (pronounced like the salad ingredient); the befuddled judge Lana marries to pump up her numbers; and Bugman the exterminator.

In the end, Lana’s election turns out to be a minor issue in this sardonic tale of who did what to whom. The justice-for-all conclusion, like the rest of this lively story, surprises and satisfies.