Discussion:Carl Hiaasen born 1953 in Fort Lauderdale, son of lawyer; married Constance Lyford, registered nurse, 1970; son, Scott Andrew. Attended Emory University 2 years, received B.S. from U. Florida (journalism in 1974. Lives in Plantation, FL. Divorced in 1996.
Began as reporter in Cocoa, FL right from college, then to Miami Herald beginning 1976. Taught at Barry College a year. Member of Society of Professional Journalists, Investigative Reporters and Editors. First fiction writing were three thrillers written in collaboration with William D. Montalbano. Hiaasen: "In Powder Burn, our first novel, Bill Montalbano and I tried to use our backgrounds and experiences as newspaper journalists to create an exciting fictional story line based on actual events. Although we invented the characters, the episodes of drug dealing, of violence, of police and judicial frustration described in the novel came directly from our daily reporting.
Many awards in journalism, including twice a finalist for Pulitzer Prize in public service and special local reporting for the Herald. Manuscript Collection at Mugar Memorial Library at B.U.
Still journalist at the Herald and writes for many magazines. Other crime publications include Trap Line, with Mantalbano (1982), A Death in China, with Montalbano (1985), Tourist Season (1986), Double Whammy (1987), Native Tongue (1991), Strip Tease (1993), and Stormy Weather (1996).
Carl Hiassen's novels revel in Florida's "climate of unabashed corruption," as he describes it in Skin Tight (1989), his strongest novel. Hiassen is a modern-day muckraker who sees that "Florida was being destroyed by unbridled growth, overdevelopment and pollution, and that the stinking root of those evils was greed." In his novels, greed manifests itself in remarkable ways. Hiaasen comments: "My novels exhibit a black humor peculiar to the newspaper business. Each of them also benefits from their loation in South Florida, one of the most perverse and exciting places in America. As extreme as some of my scenes and characters may appear to many readers, they are easily recognised and appreciated by anyone who has spent a little time in Miami, Nothing that happens in my novels could not happen here in real life; much of it already has."
Crime and Mystery Writers says of Skin Tight, "The machinations of the large cast are bizarre and convoluted, but Hiaasen manages every twist perfectly, achieving a new level of control over his materials without sacrificing the humor or the originality."
Natalie Robinson writes: "Carl Hiassen is apparently a very popular, well-regrded author in the particular bailiwick of mystery writers. I found good information about him in two sources: St. James Guide to Crime and Mystery Writers and Contemporary Authors
"Everything Carl Hiassen and these reviewers said is pretty much true. It seems today that we can't escape from evidence of corruption, greed brutality, human callousness, or mental aberration whenever we pick up a newspaper, listen to the radio, or watch TV. It's in politics, business, on the streets, and most tragically in children being abused and children killing children. That said, I personally find Carl Hiasson's rendering of all this repellent and with very few redeeming features. But then I also hated the book about snuff films that we read a couple of years ago, and I wasn't too crazy about the one set in Texas with the outcast lawyer hero whose dead friend talks to him. I think that Elmore Leonard, for example, works the same territory as Carl Hiasson with equal humor and much more class and more telling effect for not including every repulsive thing anybody could think of.
"However, I did note something that interested me very much in this book--and I assume
from the reviews that it pretty much carries through Hiassen's other work. It seems to me
to rest on two elements that reflect some of the classic themes of early American
literature:
1. The lone protagonist, a person with a strong sense of honor and moral code,
who rights wrongs that the overall society ignores or is powerless to punish properly
within its own laws;
2. The corrupting effects of civilization and the redemptive quality of nature.
"Think, for example, of the scout Hawkeye in The Last of the Mohicans. Think Huck
Finn lighting out for the territories; or maybe think ...... "Just the same, I was struck by
the way Mick Stranahan lives on his houseboat, particularly in one scene where he
literally turns his back on the lights of Miami to look out over the open water and the
starry skies; also by the way he sets traps for his adversaries-his prey--like living in
the wild--and his deliberate choice of personal revenge and justice over societal justice
even when it might be available with the help of his policeman friend. And of course his
final retreat from society by swimming away from it.
"I actually think that there is a sub-genre of the overall mystery fiction genre that is the offspring of these individualistic, anti-social ideals that romanticized the American frontier-the private eye books in particular--where the hero or heroine operates outside the confines and outside the protection of the law, and often punishes evil-doers, even imposing private death sentences, but never gets called on it and always is still around for the next book. Spenser is one obvious example among many, although he mostly kills in self-defense.
"So that's my take on this month's book, and I'm sure you have a number of different ones."
Group discussion focused on that Hiassen's books have a strong sense of place which helps to integrate plot and character. And his over-the-top characterizations.