Squeeze Me

“Angie had been summoned to Casa Bellicosa to unfasten a screech owl from the presidential pompadour, which the low-swooping raptor had mistaken for a road-kill fox.” 

This is a humorous description of a dream Angie is having. It suggests a real animosity from the animal kingdom toward the President, who is threatening wildlife habitat. It also foreshadows the genuine danger that will later be presented by a python invading the President’s home.

“It took a while for Crosby to adjust, but he advanced up the ranks due to an innate politeness, whiteness, and lack of a redneck accent. Since becoming chief, he’d also been well-served by an uncommon immunity to condescension.”

The reason that Crosby has remained the police chief for the pampered residents of Palm Beach is because he knows how to handle them. They are oblivious to their insulting attitude, and he develops the ability to become deaf to it as well. Despite his servility, Crosby faces being fired because the wealthy elite need a scapegoat for the python apocalypse.

“Angie felt that all wildlife was better off in the true wild, or the nearest thing to wild that still existed in a state with twenty-two million humans. She felt childishly hopeful every time she opened a travel kennel and watched her relieved captive scamper into the scrub, out of sight.”

This comment establishes Angie’s love for nature. Her whole job is to keep wild animals separated from humans. Ironically, she walks right into a crisis orchestrated by Skink to bring the two worlds into a collision with one another.

“She enjoyed nothing about being First Lady, but she felt especially smothered by the ironclad timetables upon which each day was structured. Once inside the limousine, she was captive cargo—no spontaneous detours, no carefree changes of plans.” 

Mockingbird’s perception of herself as captive cargo is telling. She is an object to be carted from one place to another, nothing but a stage prop to shore up her unstable husband’s public image.

“The story line would jibe splendidly with one of the President’s favorite fake-populist narratives: The nation was under siege by bloodthirsty hordes charging like rabid wolverines across the borders.” 

This quote indicates that Diego’s arrest near the crime scene offers a political advantage to the President. His guilt or innocence isn’t even a consideration. He fits a preexisting narrative that the President can now exploit to maximum effect.

“Fay Alex, who wished not to be tainted by association, urged Chase and Chance to cough up the dough. ‘Otherwise you’ll be all over social media, and not in a good way. Think about your wives and children. Palm Beach is a hideously small town. This is a legacy issue.’” 

When the Cornbright brothers balk at paying a fee for information, Fay Alex’s objection is telling. She worries about the family’s image within the community. All sorts of immoral behavior are condoned, but not being seen as miserly.

“Throughout the long deep-state witch hunt—the doctored Minsk defecation video, the phony tax-evasion probe, the counterfeit porn-star diaries, the bogus Moscow skyscraper investigation, the hoax penile-enhancement scandal, the fake witness-tampering charges, and both fraudulent impeachment trials—the Potussies had remained steadfast, vociferous, adoring defenders.” 

This long catalog of criminal investigations and charges ought to make a sane person question the candidate they support. Not so for the Potussies. If POTUS declares that these are all fake accusations, his adoring followers will believe him.

“Diego was confident he’d be freed from jail the next morning and taken back to the immigration detention center […]. In a place like South Florida, such heart-bound faith in the justice system could best be described as quaint.” 

Diego is depicted as a lamb being prepared for slaughter. The book’s indictment of the judicial system appeals to the reader emotionally when such touching innocence is betrayed. Fortunately, cynical survivors like Angie and Skink figure out workarounds to thwart the broken system and deliver justice anyway.

“‘You think he could be right about this Diego kid being involved in the old woman’s death?’ Ryskamp looked up with a rueful smile. ‘Don’t you get it? It doesn’t […] matter whether he’s right or not. That’s the scary part.’” 

Ryskamp is discussing the President’s latest pronouncements with a fellow agent. His observation is chilling. As long as the President has credibility with his followers, anything he says will be received as gospel.

“Because the whole country thinks you’re a political terrorist, knocking off rich old white ladies who love the President. A hard ugly mood has taken hold, and you’re the metaphorical bug under the boot heel.”

This quote is Angie’s response when Diego insists that the police already have evidence proving his innocence. He is processing his condition from the standpoint of a rational person who expects the law to function for the benefit of the common citizen. Angie is processing his condition from the standpoint of one who understands how the legal system really works.

“I don’t think you appreciate what’s at play here. It’s all goddamn theater, and the people behind the curtain don’t have souls. You don’t know these creeps.” 

Ryskamp is explaining to Angie how the political system works. She is still willing to fight for justice. He has already given up. There is no chance that truth will win out when everything that happens is a puppet show.

“It wasn’t that long ago when she’d fallen hard for him; now he was a raging, gaseous oaf. Gone was any trace of the sly charm and tenderness. In their early years he could actually laugh at himself, but Mockingbird couldn’t recall the last time she’d seen an honest smile on his face.” 

This quote helps explain how Mockingbird ended up with the President in the first place. The reader might be inclined to see her as a heartless gold digger, but her comment indicates that she was once duped in the same way that her husband continues to dupe the rest of the world. Her words also imply that the President once had genuine emotions but has lost them during his climb to power.

“The affair was reckless, nerve-racking, and utterly addictive, made more thrilling by the impassive role that each of them was forced to play in public. Although they never spoke about devising a future together, Ahmet wanted to believe that, beyond the heat of the moment, Mockingbird cared for him as much as he cared for her.”

In this quote, Keith/Ahmet admits that his feelings for the First Lady are genuine. Furthermore, he chooses to believe that she loves him in return. His fellow agents mock his attachment because genuine emotion in the world of national politics is unprecedented. In the end, Mockingbird proves that his faith is not misplaced.

“This was a problem, her dogged temper. It was the only reason she had a rap sheet.”

This comment encapsulates the essence of Angie’s personality. She herself admits that her relentlessness hasn’t served her well. However, it is this very tenaciousness that causes her to persist in finding the python thieves and eventually also finding a way to free Diego when no one else is willing to try.

“It was better when I was hiding from all human contact. For a while I couldn’t tell you what year, month or day it was. The setback, God help me, was deciding to reconnect. Once I turned on the goddamn internet, no more sleep.” 

Skink is explaining to Angie why he’s so upset with the state of the nation that he is unleashing a horde of snakes. Skink can’t avoid reading about the President’s latest antics online. Tweeting proves to have an unexpected downside for the President because it inflames his opponents as well as his political base.

“Angie tried not to think much about politics. It didn’t seem to matter who was in power—nothing got better in the besieged, breathtaking world she cared about most. The Everglades would never be the lush unbroken river it once was.”

Despite finding herself immersed in national politics because of the Casa Bellicosa python, Angie takes a bleak and fatalistic view of the possibility of effecting positive change through ordinary channels. From her perspective, big business interests seem to control the Oval Office no matter which party is in power.

“All the treasured wilderness that had been sacrificed at the altar of growth was gone for all time […]. Surely the old ex-governor knew this. Angie found herself envying his capacious anger and high torque after a lifetime of crushingly predictable futility. The man was seriously bent, but he also was high-functioning.”

Angie is drawing a distinction between her view of the environment and Skink’s. She has become a fatalist who doesn’t believe anything can be done to stem the tide of progress, yet she admires Skink’s refusal to give way to despair. He may be crazy, but he isn’t without hope.

“Where could a man run to escape such infamy? How could he hide from the global talons of Twitter and Instagram? Diego had been told his name was now well-known in his hometown, and all Honduras. If he returned, who would risk being a friend? Or lover? Or wife?”

Diego is considering the dark side of global communications. With the world so interconnected, every random lie spoken about him by the President will be disseminated to all corners of the planet. The prison of public opinion will confine him even if he is freed from a physical jail.

“The mediation by the serpent was necessary. Evil can seduce man, but cannot become man.” 

Skink underlines this Kafka quote because it has relevance to his python project. He sees the serpents as the necessary mediators that bring enlightenment. Despite the serpent causing the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the garden, it does give them the knowledge of good and evil. Skink hopes his snakes will do the same for the blissfully ignorant residents of Palm Beach.

“That animal was so big and beautiful. She sat in a stall and cried for a while. The python’s problem was being on the wrong continent; her problem was being in the wrong state of mind. A job was a job.”

This quote reveals Angie’s ambivalence about killing the python. Even though she knows it is a threat to the wildlife and humans and an invasive species, her love of nature makes her deplore the action she must take. The snake is in the wrong place at the wrong time. Secretly, perhaps Angie feels the same about herself.

“‘There’s a rumor going around that I’m sleeping with one of my Secret Service agents. It would be bad for both of us if that ever got past these walls.’ Mastodon appeared genuinely startled. Mockingbird wasn’t surprised, cluelessness being a chronic symptom of his self-absorption.”

Throughout the novel, Secret Service agents are fearful that POTUS will learn of his wife’s affair. This quote indicates that they needn’t have bothered. His complete self-absorption makes him oblivious to the undercurrents surrounding him.

“The most powerful person on the planet had nothing to say as he helplessly watched his ball-busting wife march off with her Secret Service team.” 

The novel’s President is fond of airing his thoughts to anyone who will listen. Nothing he says contains any substance. In contrast, his wife makes her words count. She lays down the law about releasing Diego by threatening to divorce him and create a scandal.

“He had resigned before the town of Palm Beach could fire him. The council needed someone high-ranking to blame for the calamitous night of the pythons, during which Crosby had discharged his service weapon more times than the whole police force had in the previous decade. The shrillest advocates for his dismissal were Fay Alex Riptoad and, naturally, the Cornbright brothers.” 

Crosby makes a valiant attempt to slay all the pythons threatening charity events on the island. As might be expected, his faithful service is met with ingratitude from the Palm Beath community. The fact that no one needed to fire a gun there for an entire decade might be partly attributable to his watchfulness. Like Ryskamp, Crosby realizes that he can do better than work for idiots.