Fever Beach

Dale Figgo, one of the book’s three protagonists, is a 37-year-old white man who works in a warehouse packing sex toys. He is described as a large man with “[s]uper-hairy arms” and a patchy beard that “[looks] like ginger pubes” (30). He is a former member of the Proud Boys but was kicked out of the group for smearing feces on a Confederate statue he mistook for a Union statue during the January 6th insurrection. Several other high-profile hate groups have declined his membership, and so he has formed his own, the comically named “Strokers for Liberty,” a reference to his habit of frequent masturbation—a habit vehemently shunned by his former Proud Boy comrades. Viva sums up Figgo as a “bigot, slob, conspiracy nut, and hatemonger” (13).

Despite his repugnant politics, Figgo is intended as a comic figure—one that points out how directionless people lacking education, ethics, and empathy are susceptible to radicalization by extremists. His character functions as an illustration of The Nature of Political Extremism, portraying extremism as both dangerous and ridiculous. Figgo clearly lacks both ethics and empathy—he has been repeatedly fired for stealing but tells people that it was because of his supervisors’ prejudice against white men.