CRINKUM CRANKUM
"Pop-a-Nut"
"Crinkum-crankum" is an old English expression meaning something full of twists and turns, convolutions, unexpected bends, and elaborate complications.
Dictionaries define it as something fancifully intricate or excessively winding.
In other words, the title was a warning.
The Goodreads description reads like someone describing a nervous breakdown in real time:
A serial terrorist is on the loose.
The FBI and CIA are fighting over who catches him.
A freelance operative with Tourette syndrome looks exactly like Bruce Willis.
IRS agents appear.
Two unrelated stories become intertwined.
The characters revolt.
The author is forced to arbitrate.
The author then starts having fun of his own.
Most novels ask readers to suspend disbelief.
Crinkum Crankum (Bartleby Press, 1998) asked readers to suspend reality.
Looking back, I suspect it may have been my most honest novel because it acknowledged something most fiction politely ignores: Characters eventually develop minds of their own.
Goodreads contains a phrase I particularly enjoy:
“The recalcitrant characters revolt and fight for primacy.”
That is either innovation or a cry for help.
Possibly both.
Because I wrote this very strange novel during a longish bout with sciatica.
The deeper irony is that many years later, after doing intelligence, I came to appreciate that reality itself is essentially crinkum-crankum.
