Tequila Mockingbird by Tim Federle Read Free Book Online

lemon-lime soda over ice in a highball glass. Grab some fishing tackle (looks like a fish; has a hook), give it a soapy scrubbing, and then bait ’n’ float your kumquat. Alternatively, lose the glass and fill a fisherman’s flask. Just don’t sip and sail.

THE MALTED FALCON
THE MALTESE FALCON (1930)
BY DASHIELL HAMMETT
    U nless you’re a senior at P.D.U. (that’s Private Detective University), ninety bucks says you skipped The Maltese Falcon , a popular pulpy novel that became a gun-for-gun film retelling with Humphrey Bogart as a cynical spy for hire. Though it may read like a series of stereotypes today, Dashiell Hammett’s shady cast of femmes fatales and jewel thieves practically wrote the playbook for crime fiction—and the subsequent film noir boom it helped get off the ground. Speaking of which, our simple swill will have you flying higher than a falcon figurine. Slam with suspicion, ’cause this one goes down as gritty and unsentimental as any good private eye.
    8 ounces malt liquor
    1½ ounces butterscotch liqueur
    Pour the malt liquor into a chilled pint glass, and the liqueur into a shot glass. Drop the entire shot, including the glass, into the malt liquor, and . . . uh . . . “enjoy.” Now, watch the door and keep one finger on the metaphorical trigger. You’re staying in for the night after one of these.

TWENTY THOUSAND LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA BREEZE
TWENTY THOUSAND LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA (1870)
BY JULES VERNE
    T ranslated, adapted, sometimes even copied (see: Finding Nemo, among others), this dazzling adventure by Jules Verne, the French father of science fiction, was shockingly prescient in its depiction of future underwater technologies. A time-tested tale of “Boy meets fish, fish turns out to be secret submarine, submarine never lets boy leave because now he knows too much ,” Twenty Thousand Leagues sends readers into chilly ocean depths, where they meet eccentric scientists, memorable sea monsters, and one very unforgiving whirlpool. Swirl up your grandfather’s Sea Breeze recipe with a little carbonation—and settle old scores by serving this one with calamari.
    1½ ounces vodka
    2 ounces grapefruit juice
    2 ounces cranberry juice
    1 (12-ounce) can club soda
    Combine the vodka and juices over ice in a highball glass, and fill to the top with the club soda. Drink slowly to avoid the bends—and come up for air every now and then, diver boy.

LORD PIMM
LORD JIM (1899)
BY JOSEPH CONRAD
    I f it ain’t broke, recycle your narrator. You remember Marlow, the complicated Englishman of Conrad’s earlier Heart of Darkness ? (Don’t get too cocky, it was only ten recipes ago.) Marlow’s baaaack, this time telling another man’s tale. Jim is a young seaman who fancies himself a hero—only to abandon a ship full of Mecca-bound pilgrims when tragedy literally strikes. (Note: if you wanna make some serious coin, go back a hundred years and write about conflicted men at sea.) Told out of chronological order in an innovative, multi-narrator format, Lord Jim can nonetheless get a tad stuffy. Spice these Brits up with a famous English beverage that’ll turn any host into a hero.
    1 cucumber, sliced thin into wheels, including 1 wedge for garnish
    2 ounces Pimm’s No. 1
    1 (12-ounce) can lemon-lime soda
    Lemon wedge, for garnish
    Place several cucumber wheels in a Collins glass, fill with ice, and pour in the Pimm’s. Fill to the top with lemon-lime soda, squeeze and drop a lemon wedge into the glass, and garnish with a cucumber for serious cred. And for the love of Triton: serve women and childlike adults first.

THE SOUND AND THE SLURRY
THE SOUND AND THE FURY (1929)
BY WILLIAM FAULKNER
    A southern family’s tragic downfall told from three distinct voices—with a final, omniscient chapter— The Sound and the Fury became popular only after one of Faulkner’s later novels took off. With unreliable