Dave Barry - Style

Style

Barry has defined a sense of humor as "a measurement of the extent to which we realize that we are trapped in a world almost totally devoid of reason. Laughter is how we express the anxiety we feel at this knowledge."

When distinguishing fact from hyperbole, Barry frequently asserts: "I am not making this up." Among his favorite topics are exploding or flaming items (cows, whales, vacuum cleaners, toilets, Pop-Tarts, Barbie dolls, etc.), dogs lacking intelligence, live blogging, the television series 24, and amusing government studies. He labels various posts on his blog with long acronyms, such as WBAGNFARB ("would be a good name for a rock band"), poking fun at long internet abbreviations.

He also enjoys making fun of South Florida, where he resides. In Dave Barry Hits Below the Beltway, he suggested that many of America's problems could be solved if South Florida were literally sawed off from the mainland and disowned by the United States. He also has made fun of the region in Homes and Other Black Holes as well as other books of his. Even his novels, Big Trouble and Tricky Business, capitalize heavily in the absurdities that exist only in South Florida. In Big Trouble, for example, the ridiculous nuances of South Florida are expressed through the experiences of the two hit men, Henry and Leonard. They experience an irritating sports talk show host, a highly incompetent airport security detail, and are attacked by a python by the name of Daphne in the same airport before deciding that they never want to return to Florida again. Barry also uses Big Trouble to poke fun at the existence of a Russian arms black market, the corrupt political system (Puggy makes a living off being paid to vote), and the incredibly loose labor laws in the region.

The phrase "would be a good name for a rock band" is an observation Barry often applies to phrases that pop up in his writing, such as "The Moos of Derision", "Decomposing Tubers" and "Hearty Polyp Chuckles". In keeping with this, Barry's website contains a fairly sizable list of phrases that he claims would be good names for a rock band.

In his humor books, Barry often cites a humorous phrase or image, which he then mercilessly repeats throughout. Notable examples include the Hawley-Smoot Tariff in Dave Barry Slept Here: A Sort of History of the United States, Buffalo Bob in Dave Barry Turns 50, and giant prehistoric zucchini in Dave Barry Hits Below the Beltway, e.g."Growth of U.S. government according to Alan Greenspan=giant prehistoric zucchini." He continues to reference these things, occasionally with fake subtlety (e.g., "The H*****-S**** T*****").

His novels typically feature numerous initially unrelated subplots, many related to criminal activity, which slowly intertwine over the course of the story. Many critics explicitly compare this style to that of Elmore Leonard, though with a more comedic tone.