For Florida Fiction: Hiaasen, Leonard & Levine

[straygator]

That photo reminded me of Naked Came the Manatee. Too bad that one's not available in e-format.

I second the Swamplandia mention, and I'd add Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God and Hemingway's To Have and Have Not to the list.

I enjoyed The Yearling way back when. Cross Creek, not so much - to me it came off as too condescending to the 'natives,' like Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings felt she was doing the people of Cross Creek a favor by living with them for a year. Heresy, I know, but . . .

[TonyR]

If memory serves, Charles Willeford's Hoke Moseley novels were set in Miami. And Dave Barry's Big Trouble is not to be missed either.

Some years back, BookTV aired an appearance by Barry; he talked about book tours and how the writer would go to all these cities but all he ever saw of them were airports, hotel rooms, back seats of taxicabs, and bookstore signing tables, and so he could easily forget what city he was in. Barry said he could always tell if he was in Florida or somewhere else by the comments of the public. If he wasn't in Florida, people would say to him, "Boy, Dave, what a wacky imagination you've got," and if he was in Florida, they'd say, "Man, that's exactly how it is here."

Bests to all,
--Tony Rabig