book review: Crasswords

keyne bought this for me the other day: Crasswords: Dirty Crosswords for Cunning Linguists.

I was dubious at first. Books of gimmicky crosswords never seem to work out well, because they're more about the gimmick than the puzzle. Parnell Hall's "Puzzle Lady" books are a great example. Mediocre puzzles and a mediocre mystery add up to not a whole lot of anything.  But I figured I'd give it a shot anyway.

I shouldn't have worried.  The book is edited by Francis Heaney, he of the Holy Tango of Literature.  (If you have not read that, you should go do it now.  No, I mean right now.  Really.  It's okay, I'll wait.)  Heaney also turns out to be a former editor-at-large of GAMES Magazine, which is even more reassuring.

And the puzzles are really very well done.  keyne can confirm that I spent my first evening with the book cackling at every other clue I found.  It's true that there is a bit of a thrill just to read a clue like "Smear with shit", or simply filling in FUCKIT or BLOWJOB into the answer grid.  But if the theme were that shallow, the puzzles wouldn't hold up well.  The puzzles take full advantage of the crossword format.  You get bawdy clues with demure answers, innocently-worded clues with bawdy answers, and everything in between.  So when you get a clue like "They're usually black and 12 inches" you don't actually have any inherent idea of where to go with the answer.  The themed clues go even farther, making puns I never would have thought of.  (So far my favorite is "Anilingus in the ocean?")

I get the impression that this is the sort of thing crossword constructors do to blow off steam at 2 a.m. when they're up against a deadline: write puzzles that would get them thrown out of any editor's office in the country.  I suspect that Heaney just called up all of the constructors he knows and told them to do their worst.  And oh lord, you can see how much fun they had.