Fat Tuesday: Party hard, go to bed early. Ash Wednesday: Get up at midnight, gather the crew, go rob a bank.

What could possibly go wrong?

You could argue Chris Warner spent most of his life doing research for his new Mardi Gras novel, or at least the parts of it that don’t relate directly to grand larceny. He’s from New Iberia, La., and lived for a while in Fairhope, getting plenty of exposure to the Mobile area’s take on Carnival. For the last decade he’s made the Perdido Key region his home. Drawn to the legendary Flora-Bama, he didn’t just hang out there: He became friends with one of the men who made it the institution that it is, the late Joe Gilchrist, and helped write Gilchrist’s memoir, “Bushwacked at the Flora-Bama.”

“Mamou” is an exploration of Mardi Gras traditions along the Gulf Coast that sort of follows the course of Warner’s life in reverse.

Both in real life and on the page, this story starts with a barstool pitch. In real life, the bar was Hub Stacey’s on the Point, and it was architect Brad Lee Patterson who pitched his screenplay idea for a Mardi Gras crime caper to Warner.

Warner immediately thought he could turn it into a novel.

Maybe “architect” doesn’t cover it. At a recent author appearance at The People’s Room in Mobile, Warner introduced Patterson by saying “he’s an international bon vivant, he’s a character, I’ve seen him drink eight bushwackers in one night.” (Aside from the central idea, Patterson also provided the novel’s engaging cover art and illustrations scattered throughout the text.)

On the page, the pitch comes (of course) at the Flora-Bama. It’s the Saturday before Fat Tuesday. An unheard-of February hurricane has wrecked the sailboat that Arnie O’Roark, an architect originally from Huntsville, called home. He was pretty much down and out before the storm. Now he’s outer, and downer. But he gets a call from an old Louisiana friend who’s on his way with the Cajun Navy to rescue him. Meaning, to buy him a drink or three and pitch a crazy scheme that will give him a reason to live.

Excerpt: Polecart (”Polie-car) “Cutter” LeBlanc was a native of Mamou, Louisiana, a tiny Cajun enclave ten miles from Eunice and home of the world-famous “Courir de Mardi Gras” or “running of the Mardi Gras,” a nineteenth-century religious ritual borne from the forgotten French feudal lord system that happens annually on Fat Tuesday on the Cajun Prairie, signifying the end of the Catholic-sponsored soiree and the beginning of the Lenten fasting period.

LeBlanc has the original architectural plans for an old bank in Mamou. He reckons that Ash Wednesday, when the whole community is sleeping off the revelries of Carnival, will be the perfect time for a heist.

That puts “Mamou” on a pretty tight timetable. Sunday takes O’Roark and LeBlanc to Mobile, which allows Warner to explore the iniquities and uniquities of Joe Cain Day. “One of my heroes is Joe Cain, I think the guy’s amazing,” Warner told listeners at The People’s Room.

On Lundi Gras, the growing crew heads to New Orleans, where they have themselves a large time before moving on to Mamou and its own highly distinctive Fat Tuesday traditions.

Mardi Gras veterans often advise newcomers that it’s a marathon, not a sprint. The whirlwind travelogue of “Mamou” ratchets that concept up a notch, with the snowballing cadre of would-be criminals, accomplices and girlfriends referring to it as the “Dixie Iditarod.”

But there’s a method to the madness, as Warner told his audience. It’s no accident that there’s a historical timeline in the back of the book. He wanted to map out the ways Carnival is celebrated on the Gulf Coast. Real restaurants, real bars, real history, real traditions.

“I give you a history of the Mardi Gras in Mobile, New Orleans and Mardi Gras,” he said. “History precedes each scene in sequential order in the book, along I-10. It’s really neat, it’s fun.”

It’s a book that takes him back home.

“Where I’m from, in New Iberia, New Iberia was founded in 1779 by Spanish people, about 500 of them,” Warner said. “At that time the Spanish had taken over Louisiana from the French in 1762 in the treaty of Fountainbleu. Once the Cajuns showed up, all those Spanish people acquiesced to the Cajun culture. If you go to Acadiana – my father whose surname was Warner, he embraced the Cajun culture, he came from California and he lived like a Cajun – if you’re going to live there, you’re going to live like a Cajun, you’re going to be a Cajun. You’re going to do the things they do, you’re going to observe the holidays, you’re going to eat their food, you will be a Cajun.

“Mamou is home to the Cajun capital in the world of music,” he said. “Fred’s lounge is open every Saturday only from 7 a.m. to 2. One day a week. But on Mardi Gras it’s open Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, five days in a row. It’s a big part of the end of the book, on Mardi Gras Day, where it’s open all day long.”

Excerpt: The Cajun Mardi Gras is known as the “running of the Mardi Gras” or “Courir de Mardi Gras,” or “the run” in French; and that’s because we’re talking about running fast enough to catch a live chicken, as it is a repeated, youthful, often hilarious contest within this fascinating, colorful, outdoor spectacle in South Louisiana that is unlike any other Mardi Gras celebration in the world. … During this anything-goes pre-Lenten holiday dating to medieval times, the fete de la quemande, a ritual begging festival, the goal of the common man was to drink plenty of beer and liquor, have great fun, create mayhem and gather by begging the ingredients for a large gumbo from the wealthy, ruling class and nobles living in the countryside.

“It has a twist to it at the end, a surprise to it,” Warner said of the caper’s culmination. “Because really there’s only a couple of things that can happen, and neither one of them does.”

“I think it’s a story that will last a long time because it’s about a holiday everybody loves … it’s just a fun holiday romp,” he said of his tribute to Mardi Gras. “It kind of makes you think about life and how important it is to have fun.”

Warner and Patterson will spend part of the 2023 carnival season promoting and distributing the book. Beyond that? Patterson still envisions a movie. But he and Warner said at The People’s Room that they’re also dreaming up ventures such as a “Dixie Iditarod” bus tour that would take party-hearty Carnival celebrants along the route described in the book.

“We promise to bring you back,” said Patterson.

As of Jan. 20, “Mamou” was available through select local bookstores such as The Haunted Book Shop in downtown Mobile, with online ordering coming soon. For updates on availability, check chriswarnerauthor.com.