Book Review: Crooked Little Vein

Warren Ellis' novel, Crooked Little Vein, lives up to what fans of his work as a comics writer have come to expect. It is engaging and clever. It is filled with the grotesque and the wonderful. While the content can be hard to read, the prose is easy. It's a thoughtful novel that challenges the divisions between mainstream culture and fringe culture. The journey of the novel takes the reader across the United States and through the less acknowledged parts of American culture.

The plot of the novel seems incidental to what the focus is. It's a catalyst only. It brings our characters together and gives them the means to have their adventure. Ultimately the lost second constitution of the United States, bound in the skin of an alien who tormented Benjamin Franklin during his travels in France, is not important. The novel is about culture. What makes mainstream culture is the chief question of the novel. Private Detective Mike McGill and his assistant Trix argue over this question again and again. If it's on TV or on the internet how can it really be underground? Anyone can discover it. Anyone can join. The notion that what is generally referred to as being fringe culture is actually at the heart of the modern American Mainstream is an interesting argument that the two pursue during their journey across the country.