Looking Back at The Swifts

When I first decided to write reviews of my “Twelve Favorite Middle-Grade Novels of All Time” (a part of my blog), I did not have The Swifts: A Dictionary of Scoundrels, on my list. That’s because I hadn’t read it. Now that I have, it definitely deserves a spot on my list.

In The Swifts, author Beth Lincoln takes readers on a wild ride involving eccentric characters, a twisty whodunit mystery and a ton of witty word play. The Swifts, published in 2023, is Lincoln’s debut novel. A New York Times bestseller, the novel won the Barnes & Noble Children’s & YA Book Award and the Nero Book Award for Children’s Fiction. Unsurprisingly, Lincoln has since written two additional novels in the series.

On the day they are born, each member of the Swift family is brought before an ancient family dictionary and given a word name and definition that corresponds to the kind of person they will grow to be. The heroine of The Swifts is 12-year-old Shenanigan (“risk-taker, mischief-maker”) who isn’t shy about seeking out trouble.

The setting for the novel is the Swift family reunion held annually in the family’s ancient manor house located somewhere in the English countryside. The house itself is an important part of the setting, with its twisting hallways, secret passages and booby traps for the unwary. Shenanigan is excited to participate in the reunion and looking forward to getting to know her many arriving relatives until someone gives a beloved aunt a deadly push down the stairs. Shenanigan, her two sisters Phenomena (precise, scientific) and Felicity (kind-hearted, sincere), and a cousin who goes by the name Erf (Erf resists being named), set out to solve the mystery. What follows is a clever, twisting plot with lots of suspects, double-dealing, innovative weapons (for example, two of the Swift relatives engage in a “Scrabble to the death’ contest), and a clever late-reveal of the killer.

As a writer and avid reader of middle-grade fiction, I sometimes stumble across a novel that leaves me in awe of the power of the written word. The Swifts is one such novel. The plot alone is entertaining but it is Lincoln’s delightful word-play that sets this novel apart. One gets the impression that this lexicon-loving writer had a lot of fun putting this story together. Every page – and I mean every page – is filled with original and creative metaphors and similes. The writing is consistently whimsical and humorous. The printed book numbers 338 pages so I could give 338 examples but to save time, here is a sample:

·       (page 10) – “The House looked very fine. The lawns had been swept clean of leaves, the hedge maze had been trimmed, and the statues had been scrubbed behind the ears.”

·       (page 83) – “… Shenanigan began to suspect that Daisy was actually hollow, and had to be blown up every few hours, like a balloon.”

·       (page 131) – “Phenomena and Shenanigan flattened themselves against the wall to let him pass, but, like a trip to the dentist, he could not be entirely avoided.”

In the Swift family tradition, you are what you are named. Like her cousin, Erf, Shenanigan comes to resents the idea of a pre-determined name to match a pre-determined personality, especially since the name she has been assigned has negative connotations. Author Beth Lincoln could have descended into a kind of ‘do your own thing’ clichéd resolution, where Shenanigan simply re-names herself. Instead, Shenanigan makes peace with her name because she realizes that words have many meanings, some of them nuanced, and that they evolve with time. In the words of poet TS Eliot (from Burnt Norton), “Words strain, crack and sometimes break, under the burden ….”

Shenanigan accepts her name because the novel is about her journey to redefine herself, proving she can forge her own destiny rather than letting her name alone dictate who she becomes. In so doing, Shenanigan succeeds in saving her family and herself.

Author’s note: This review is the second in a series of my twelve favorite middle-grade books of all time. The first review was of “Because of Winn-Dixie.” Stay tuned for next month’s review of “Matilda” by Roald Dahl.