Suburban Dicks by Fabian Nicieza

G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 400 pages, $27 (c2021)

According to the author’s bio on the back flap of the book, Fabian Nicieza “is an Argentine American comic book writer and editor who is best known as the co-creator of Marvel’s Deadpool and for his work on titles such as X-Men, X-Force, New Warriors, Cable, and Thunderbolts.”

So you know the book is going to be funny, right.

One of Nicieza’s main characters is Andrea Stern, who spends most of the book looking like a beach ball with feet, i.e., she’s pregnant, with her fifth child. The other main character is Kenneth Lee, a reporter who ran afoul of ethics considerations, i.e., he crossed the line and made up a quote on a major story. This book is about coming back from being knocked back for the protagonists and about being haunted and shackled by the past for the antagonists.

Andrea had a bright future ahead of her. She was gearing up to become an FBI profiler after helping to solve a major case while still in college. Then she got pregnant. The father of her child was set to make oodles of money on Wall Street, so Andrea put her dreams on hold. She married Jeff and they proceeded to bounce out a bunch of children. Some of them might be named Sadie and Sarah, and Eli, and … um, there’s another one. I’ll think on it. Another is definitely on the way. At the beginning of the book, Andrea is seven months pregnant, but maybe she miscounted the months because she looks as though she might burst. (Insert your own ripe fruit simile here.)

Unfortunately, Jeff cheats, not with other women but from his clients. He “appropriated” funds, got caught, and is on probation. The family has downsized from a McMansion to (still a pretty big) house. They live in the suburbs. Jeff commutes by train. There is only one car. At 6:30 or so every morning the whole family drives him to the train station. Then, because it is summer, there are activities, friends, pool time, kids running wild. Not so secretly, Andrea is bored and disgruntled. 

Here’s an excerpt about Jeff:

They had brought their furniture over from the old house even though Jeff had wanted to buy all-new stuff. He continued to act like the money would last forever even when so much of it had been lost.

Not lost, since that implied an accidental misplacement. Squandered. Stolen, Litigated. Adjudicated. Reimbursed to the clients he had cheated. Paid to the IRS to avoid going to prison. Any and all of those better defined where the money had gone as a result of Jeff’s transgressions.

Kenneth Lee is a couple of years younger than Andrea and knew her in high school. He had a crush on her. She had a crush on his older brother. Kenneth is living out his disgrace at a small town paper in New Jersey and hoping for a big story that will send him back to the big leagues. However, he still carries the character defects that landed him in purgatory to begin with: arrogance and the ability to piss off just about anyone, especially his mother, Blaine (aka Huiquing, but “Blaine” looked better for the purposes of selling real estate). Huiquing lives in a retirement facility, where she is one of the youngest residents. This fact proves useful later in the book. Meanwhile, it provides great fodder for humor and a touch of humanity.

What brings Andrea and Kenneth together again after many years is the murder of a gas station attendant. As the story begins, Andrea stumbles across the crime scene shortly after two patrol officers arrive. Her youngest child needs to pee. One of the officers will not let Andrea use the restroom, so the toddler, unable to hold it, pees all over the crime scene. While, ahem, events are unraveling, Andrea gets a good look at the scene. In rapid fire language, Andrea tells Officer Wu (daughter of the mayor) how she and the other officer mishandled the crime scene. Them she drives off.

The official line is that the victim, Satkunananthan Sasmal, was killed in a robbery. Andrea knows that couldn’t possibly be true. She can’t help it; she’s hooked. She starts her own investigation, sometimes dragging one or more children with her, . When she combines forces with Kenneth, they make the most of their irregular resources: retired people, housewives, the tight-knit Indian community, a friend at the FBI. The FBI friend is Ramon. If Andrea hadn’t gotten pregnant, she would have broken up with Jeff and run off with Ramon. They met during the case that made Andrea famous. But that was then and this is now, and she hasn't seen Ramon since then. Neither she nor Kenneth have very weighty credentials to be investigating the crime and trying to uncover malfeasance in the community government. But they persevere.

“Suburban Dicks” is a worthy tale. The plot line becomes more serious as the investigation digs deeper. Might be worth a hankie or two. It certainly is worth an MBTB star or two!

MBTB star!

Ah, Ruth — that’s the name of Andrea’s judgmental oldest child. I think she’s a rising star at the age of nine.