INDIAN RIVER COUNTY — Tim Dorsey is not your average author writing about a serial killer, and Serge A. Storms is not your usual serial killer. In Dorsey’s novels, Serge is a man with a unique moral code: he enforces society’s rules of behavior.
To be fair, Serge gives transgressors a warning. Second offenses are frequently punishable by death.
So it came as a surprise when Dorsey began his latest book signing at the Vero Beach Book Center by videotaping the standing-room-only audience shouting, “Serge for President!” so he could post it to social media.
Dorsey was in Vero Beach last week to talk about his latest novel, “When Elves Attack.”
Dorsey’s publisher HarperCollins had been asking for a Christmas story for several years. He was afraid that writing a Christmas story would mean “taking out all the things that make Serge, well, Serge.”
Nevertheless, HarperCollins insisted.
They wanted a Serge Christmas book, with Dorsey “putting all that Serge stuff in, but making it a happy Christmas story.”
Putting Serge in a happy Christmas story was a challenge Dorsey answered in his usual zany fashion.
“When Elves Attack” is not a typical Christmas story. The themes of family and of goodwill toward men are present, but they are filtered through characters familiar from previous Dorsey novels: Serge A. Storms and his stoned sidekick Coleman; Jim and Martha Davenport and their teenage daughter; and the G-Unit, four grandmothers who are not taking retirement-home living lying down.
The initial elves of the title are Serge and Coleman. Serge thinks people are too constricted by societal conventions, such as going through the process of applying at a mall to be a Christmas elf. Instead, Serge and Coleman decide to dress up in elf costumes and spread Christmas cheer wherever they want.
Woe to the people they encounter who are not being appropriately festive.
Mayhem ensues, and throughout the story we have the holiday season seen through the lens of Serge.
He may have a different way of fostering Christmas spirit and his methods may be reprehensible, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t make some valid points.
Serge’s opposite is Jim Davenport, a mild-mannered consultant for a company that downsizes companies.
Jim avoids confrontation as much as possible, which is tough to do when you are about to fire someone.
Serge sees himself as Jim’s protector and protégé. Settling once again into the house across from Jim, he decides to model himself after Jim – what Jim does, Serge does, albeit in Serge-like fashion.
Based on their previous experience with Serge, the Davenports are not eager to resume the friendship.
Their reluctance does not deter Serge, and he takes the Davenport family under his wing with mixed results.
Considering the question of whether Jim was created as Serge’s foil or just evolved that way, Dorsey offered an explanation.
“A psychiatrist came up to me at one of my readings, and said he had a theory. He said he thought Serge and Jim are both sides of me, and they are. Serge is the interesting, passionate side of me that loves trivia, and Jim is the flip side: circumspect, impulse-controlled, how I am in real life.”
Dorsey was born in Indiana, but moved to Florida as a 1-year-old. He grew up in Riviera Beach but went out of the state for college and his first newspaper jobs.
He wanted to come back to Florida, and a fortuitous job offer from the Tampa Tribune in 1987 brought him back.
Asked by an audience member why he lived in Tampa when he could semi-live anywhere in the world, Dorsey answered that he and his wife were talking about that.
“We couldn’t live anywhere else, but why do we stay? The natural beauty of the state you see everywhere.”
Dorsey enjoys traveling around the state to research his novels.
He starts without a plot, but thinks about what part of Florida would inspire him to write, either a place or a point in time: the Everglades in the 1960s, for example, as he did for “Electric Barracuda.”
He researches the area, taking pictures and spending three to five days there. The plot evolves.
He makes several trips, taking notes, then he blocks out a period of time – it varies, but usually four months – when he doesn’t tour or do events. This gives him continuity of writing.
He writes during the day while the house is empty. He prefers quiet, and uses a little fan as white noise.
He writes until his teenaged daughters come home from school.
Serge was an “accidental creation.” Referring to some of the stories and people he covered as a journalist, Dorsey said.
“As a journalist, I needed to be neutral. But privately, some of these guys hacked me off.”
Serge is Dorsey’s way of punishing the bad guys.
Writing Serge also gives Dorsey a constructive way to vent; in consequence, he is even-keeled and friendly.
He signed books for people before he spoke, posed for photos, and sold and signed Serge-related merchandise.
Dorsey talked about how he began writing.
“I hated to read but loved to write, and I was lucky and had a teacher I listened to. I didn’t want to read ‘Wuthering Heights’ at 12 or 13, but this teacher introduced me to Vonnegut and Hunter S. Thompson.”
They became his writing idols; wanting to be like them, he studied them.
When asked what authors he reads, Dorsey mentioned Thomas Mc- Guane, author of “Ninety-Two in the Shade,” Dave Barry, Carl Hiaasen, and Randy Wayne White.
Dorsey will be back at The Vero Beach Book Center on Jan. 30, talking about his next release “Pineapple Grenade.”
Serge and Coleman will be back, trying to be spies in Miami.
