It could be enjoyable to invest about nature versus nurture, to think about which of our quirks is likely to be innate and which could have been formed by the place or with whom we grew up. While we’re at it, we will additionally ponder that well-known query of Shakespearean origin: What’s in a reputation?
But Shenanigan Swift, the intelligent and interesting hero of Beth Lincoln’s debut novel, The Swifts: A Dictionary of Scoundrels, has just lately realized that such musings aren’t so pleasant anymore. Although Shenanigan’s identify earns her a go when she’s feeling cussed or has executed one thing an eensy bit harmful (like placing the household cat within the empty coffin earlier than the month-to-month rehearsal of her aunt’s funeral), it additionally makes her really feel misunderstood when others insist on seeing her solely as an embodiment of her identify as an alternative of as a person.
However, Shenanigan is way from the one Swift with a reputation that’s each prediction and label. For generations, the Swifts have used their household dictionary to randomly choose names that in some way turn into destinies. Shenanigan’s older sisters are named Phenomena and Felicity, her uncle is Maelstrom, her ancestors embrace Calamitous and Godwottery (the latter which means “overly elaborate gardening” or “old-fashioned and affected language”), and the Swift household matriarch is Arch-Aunt Schadenfreude. Hilariously, the aforementioned cat is just “John the Cat.”
This weekend, Shenanigan will meet much more kinfolk with dictionary-dictated names, as a result of the Swift household reunion is nigh. Far-flung of us will descend upon the stately but decrepit Swift House, a Seventeenth-century manor filled with secret doorways, the occasional turret and a library that holds each books and booby traps. It’s the proper setting for the keystone exercise of each reunion: the hunt for Grand-Uncle Vile’s long-lost fortune, which Shenanigan is decided to search out all by herself. Alas, Shenanigan’s plans are interrupted when somebody shoves Arch-Aunt Schadenfreude down the steps, and different murders quickly observe. Amid the following shock and chaos, Shenanigan and Phenomena staff as much as remedy the crimes earlier than anybody else is harmed.
Rife with scrumptious rigidity and charmingly dry wit, The Swifts explores and celebrates the wonders of wordplay and the complexity of identification whereas serving up a compelling homicide thriller and a twisty treasure hunt. As Lincoln notes in her introduction, “The thing about language is that it can’t stay still. Restless and impatient, it races forward without waiting for our dictionaries to catch up.” Word nerds will emphatically agree—they usually’ll be delighted to know {that a} sequel is within the works, too.
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