Books: Crooked Little Vein

By Lisa Fary

It’s not that I’m uncurious, I just didn’t expect to come out of Crooked Little Vein with so much more worldly knowledge.

Oh, sure. There were some things I was already aware of, like internet porn.  But, I don’t know what the one girl in the book was doing with the eels, nor do I really want to know.

I was also aware of porn theaters.  I was not aware that some catered to those who hold Godzilla in a certain sexual esteem, and enjoy using Godzilla gloves in groups.  It’s called macroherpetophilia, as I learned early on in the reading.

Body modification. I’ve seen that on the Discovery Channel.  What they don’t show you on the Discovery Channel is infusing personal body parts with saline, so that they enlarge to about the size of a grapefruit and can no longer fit properly in your pants. Warren Ellis taught me about that, too.

Crooked Little Vein is a verbal freakshow of human curiosities and perversions, with your host Warren Ellis.  The main character is actually private investigator Michael McGill, who is pursuing a book at the behest of the United States government.

Yes, the United States government, at least part of it, is actually interested in reading, but only one specific book: the other Constitution of the United States.  The one that will brainwash anyone who hears it read aloud into a model Conservative American.

I can’t say that Crooked Little Vein was good. It was interesting, educational.  It raises the question of what’s truly the “American Way” and what the real threats are to it. If you’re already reading Warren Ellis, you likely don’t find macroherpetophilia, scrotal infusion, or polyamory genuine threats to the fabric of the country, so the end is really preaching to the choir.

The story itself is thinner than the lawsuits questioning Barack Obama’s citizenship; and, just as those lawsuits tie together the sad hopes of the raging conservatives who would probably just love to hear brainwashing stylings of the other Constitution, the story of Mike McGill’s search primarily serves to tie together the parade of human curiosities and perversions.

Crooked Little Vein isn’t a good book, despite that fact that Warren Ellis’ writing style is so much fun to read.  It’s obvious he’s having a blast writing the most most offensive things he can find in order to chase off his literary agent.  That story is in the appendix along with a gem called “In the Kitchen with Warren” in which he teaches us how to make scrambled eggs and remove the seeds from a pomegranate (“Chop the pomegranate in half, like you were hacking the head off a fanboy.”).

I’m eager to try the White Chocolate Orange Pots.  I’ll pass on the bodily infusion, though.

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Lisa Fary’s early exposure to classic Battlestar Galactica in 1979 is largely responsible for her lifelong interest in science fiction and her childhood ambition of being an intergalactic space cowgirl. She thinks diagramming sentences is a fun alternative to Sudoku.

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