The Arts - Florida - page 1084

(1937), evokes the suffering of Florida's rural African Americans, particularly women. In
Seraph on the Suwanee (1948), Hurston portrays the marriage of two white Florida Crack-
ers. Controversial in her time, Hurston died in obscurity and poverty.
Another famous depiction of Florida's pioneers is Patrick Smith's A Land Remembered
(1984), a sprawling, multigenerational saga that highlights the Civil War. Meanwhile Peter
Matthiessen's Shadow Country (2008) is an epic literary masterpiece. A trilogy revised in-
to a single work, Shadow Country fictionalizes the true story of EJ Watson, a turn-of-the-
century Everglades plume hunter who murdered his employees, and was in turn murdered
by the townsfolk.
Florida writing is perhaps most famous for its eccentric take on hard-boiled noir crime
fiction. Carl Hiaasen almost singlehandedly defines the genre; his stories are hilarious
bubbling gumbos of misfits and murderers, who collide in plots of thinly disguised envir-
onmentalism, in which the bad guys are developers and their true crimes are against
nature. Some other popular names are Randy Wayne White, John D MacDonald, James
Hall and Tim Dorsey.
Florida's modern novelists tend to favor supernatural, even monstrously absurd South-
ern Gothic styles, none more so than Harry Crews; try All We Need of Hell (1987) and
Celebration (1999). Two more cult favorites are Ninety-two in the Shade (1973) by Tho-
mas McGaune and Mile Zero (1990) by Thomas Sanchez, both writerly, dreamlike Key
West fantasies. Also don't miss Russell Banks' Continental Drift (1985), about the tragic
intersection of a burned-out New Hampshire man and a Haitian woman in unforgiving
Miami.
Most recently, Karen Russell's Swamplandia! (2011), about the travails of a family of
alligator wrestlers, marries Hiaasen-style characters with swamp-drenched magical real-
ism.
Naked Came the Manatee (1998) is a collaborative mystery novel by a constellation of
famous Florida writers: Carl Hiaasen, Dave Barry, Elmore Leonard, James Hall, Edna
Buchanan and more. It's like nibbling a delectable box of cyanide-laced chocolates.