Most influential Florida novels

What do you think are the most influential novels written about Florida? Why do you think they are influential? What have you learned about Florida from these novels?

Jane - you're uniquely qualified here. Maybe you could start us off with a few ideas and see who has read them. The only Florida-themed novels I've read are Their Eyes Were watching God (wonderful) and, er, Striptease! - really. My first and last Hiaasen.

I have Cross Creek sitting on my bookshelf unread (along with River of Grass, but that's nonfiction). I also have some Harry Crews novels that were given to me.

To be honest I haven't read many books with Florida as a back drop or area. Can anyone recommend good Florida fiction?

Well... actually, the Florida College English Association is trying to winnow a list down to the 10 most influential Florida novels that are at least 18 years old (voting age) -- we have a list of 22 (in author alphabetical) -- anybody want to vote or comment???

Russell Banks. Continental Drift (1985)
- This multicultural, tragic vision of American rootlessness by a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters has been widely praised. This tragic novel of two desperate souls looking for a better life in Florida was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 1986.

François René de Chateaubriand. Atala (1801)
- The first novel about Florida, Atala was enormously popular throughout Europe, with multiple editions and translations in its first year. Chateaubriand became known as the father of French Romantic prose, and Atala helped shape the romantic vision of the noble savage and reinforce the Edenic view La Florida both in the US and in Europe.

Harry Crews. All We Need of Hell (1987)
- It’s hard to choose one Crews novel. As marvelous as his work is, how influential is it?

Pat Frank. Alas, Babylon (1959)
- The first great post war, post-apocalyptic novel, Alas, Babylon has been popular for half a century and inspired a wide range of novels, films, and television shows about life after a major catastrophe.

Ernest Hemingway. To Have and Have Not (1937)
- The Nobel laureate’s only novel set in the U.S., it is far better than many anti-papa critics will admit. While his essays and journalism from Key West may actually have been more influential, this novel tends to epitomize not only his Florida experience but his vision of the connection between Florida and Cuba.

Carl Hiaasen. Tourist Season (1986)
- The first novel by the father of the post-John D detective writers, it has inspired an entire generation of new absurdist detective novelists. Hiaasen may be the most popular Florida novelist now writing.

Zora Neale Hurston. Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937)
- The only Florida novel on most lists of the 100 greatest or best novels of the twentieth century. Hurston not only chronicled the life of African Americans in mid-20th century Florida but inspired a generation of writers to explore and celebrate African-American culture and tradition.

James Weldon Johnson. The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man (1912)
- Often mistaken for an actual autobiography, this early novel by the Jacksonville native who named the Harlem Renaissance, became the first African-American secretary of the NAACP, created the Broadway musical, and wrote both the sermon/poems God’s Trombones and the poem that became known as the Negro National Anthem (“Lift Every Voice and Sing”), defined passing for generations of black writers.

Lois Lenski. Strawberry Girl (1945)
- The Newberry Award winning novel that has introduced Florida to generations of young people.

John D. MacDonald. Condominium or a Travis McGee novel
- This is tough because Condominium seems to have been MacDonald’s most popular and influential non-Travis McGee novel, but the Travis books are his legacy. Is it possible to single out one of those color-coded novels? And should he be punished if his achievement is a body of work rather than one novel? When Condominium was published in 1977, it exposed the greed and shoddy construction of Florida’s beachfront developers. Re-reading it today, one cones away with a glimpse into Florida’s “retirement paradise” that is disturbing and still cautionary.

Thomas McGuane. Ninety Two in the Shade (1973)
- Ten or twenty years ago, wouldn’t everyone agree that Captain Berserko’s novel was a masterpiece and would influence all future Florida writers? Is that still true?

Peter Matthiessen. Killing Mr. Watson (1990)
- Could this dense, brilliant book, an incisive dissection of the community and ecology of the Everglades at the turn of the 20th century, be problematic? Is it more cited and praised than read? It has certainly been written and rewritten over the past 19 years. The latest reincarnation, Shadow Country, won the 2008 National Book award.

Theodore Pratt. The Barefoot Mailman (1943)
- If there are Florida classics (or at least South Florida classics), isn’t this one of them?

Eugenia Price. Don Juan McQueen (1975)
- Her Florida trilogy, starting with Don Juan McQueen, set in colonial and post-colonial St. Augustine have been very popular and in print since they were first published.

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings. The Yearling (1938)
- One of only two Pulitzer Prize winning novels set in Florida. The other, James Gould Cozzens Guard of Honor (1948) doesn’t really hold up.

Captain Thomas Mayne Reid. Oceola the Seminole; or, The Red Fawn of the Flower Land (sic) (1858)
- During his lifetime, the Irish-born Briton Reid, who visited the U.S. and fought in the Mexican American War, was often compared by his Victorian contemporaries to Dickens and Thackeray as a storyteller. Enormously prolific and popular, his work inspired a generation of European novelists to write novels about life on the American frontier, especially the American West. His friend Edgar Allan Poe called him “a colossal but most picturesque liar. He fibs on a surprising scale but with the finish of an artist, and that is why I listen to him attentively.”

Thomas Sanchez. Mile Zero (1989)
- In this postmodern “holy terror of a book,” Sanchez uses Key West as the base for a metaphysical mystery that centers on history and guilt. Does the book still work and has it had legs?

Patrick Smith. A Land Remembered (1984)
- Perhaps not as well known outside the state as in Florida, Smith’s multi-generational saga is enormously popular in schools, in community reading groups, and among traditional Floridians. He has probably received more honors from state organizations than any other Florida novelist, including Rawlings.

Glendon Swarthout. Where the Boys Are (1960)
- At first glance some might find this an odd choice, but it is a highly influential novel that inspired the film that created Spring Break. And Swarthout, a fine novelist who also wrote The Shootist, helped define the youth culture of the sixties.

Jules Verne. From Earth to the Moon (1865)
- Verne’s humorous and satiric description of the first lunar expedition, launched from Florida’s West Coast, was prophetic of Florida’s place at the center of space exploration and has had numerous adaptations.

Constance Fenimore Woolson. East Angels (1886)
- The grandniece of James Fenimore Cooper, Woolson had a long and curious relationship with Henry James, who apparently wrote “Miss Grief” about her. Their relationship has intrigued contemporary novelists and inspired such recent (and highly praised) novels as Emma Tennant’s Felony, David Lodge’s Author, Author, and Colm Toibin’s The Master. Her reputation, while good in her own day, has grown significantly since she died (apparently) leaping from her apartment in Venice into a canal. The Constance Fenimore Woolson Society has been very active in recovering American women writers.

Jose Yglesias. A Wake in Ybor City (1963)
- Critics are divided about this debut novel by a writer who would become an important figure in contemporary literature. Set in Tampa on the eve of the Cuban Revolution, the book examines immigrant Cuban-American families and the cigar business. Many like its portraits of Ybor City families, but others find it an apprentice work, less mature than his later work.

If one is talking about a Florida book that has had an impact on literature and this culture, one could not complete the list withoiut considering Michael Shaara's 1975 Pulitizer Prize winner -- The Killer Angels. Maybe it was overlooked by the committee because they mistakenly thoiught it was non-fiction. No, it's a novel, despitge the fact that the Army Command and
General Staff College has it on their list as mandatgory reading. What Mike did was take Gettsburg's chaos and put it in order by changing the point of view from grant to longfellow to lee et al, and he labored at thkis beast. He read us a chapter in the spring of 1972. That's a lot of re-writing and torture. Please, before your committee embarasses us before the world, add THE KILLER ANGELSl (and give JDM a special award for his life's body of work. It wojuld be hellish to pick out the most excellent novel from so many wonderful stories. I sure couldn't do it.)

andyray -- I'm sure this is a brilliant book, but one of the criteria that we are using for the selection is that the book is primarily, or at least partially, set in Florida. However, I didn't know about Killer Angels -- I'm anxious to get a copy and read it. Thanks for the recommendation!

Killer Angels is excellent and Michael Shaara could be listed among the greats of Florida authors but nothing in the book occurs in Florida. Shadow Country or one piece of the trilogy should top the list with A Land Remembered, Alas Babylon, Their Eyes were Watching God following closely. Carl Hiaassen, John D. MacDonald, Tim Dorsey, Jeff Lindsay, and many other popular fiction writers use Florida but their work though enjoyable are less than masterful. You could put Anansi Boys on the list if just having a setting in Florida is basis for criteria but I think the list but I think the bar should be higher. Eugenia Price and Rawlings deserve a place on the list because of their body of work. Never read the Hemmingway listed but I can see giving him an honorary place. At the Moon's Inn is the one novel that you did not list that should be considered. Atala was probably more about Louisanna which was considered part of La Florida. Petals Plucked from Sunny Clime by Abbie Brooks should have some recognition in a non-fiction category.

rareflorida -- thanks for the input. I haven't read Anansi Boys yet, but it's sitting on a pile next to me on the floor. And I've never heard of At the Moon's Inn -- but I just ordered a copy from Amazon -- thanks.

Anansi Boys was very enjoyable but At the Moon's Inn lacks the populist flavor though it was well written and the history was well researched. I think a movie based on Lytle's book would be better than the Jamestown movie with Colin Farrel or Mel Gibson's, Apocolypto. Lytle shold have used a Sancho Panza type character to add some humor but the pigs would do the job in a movie. Elmore Leonard also used Florida in some of his books. Popular fiction probably should be in a separate category unless it is deep in historical or cultural significance. Wekiva Winter is well done but it could never compete with Hiassen in a popularity contest. Hiassen has do a good job of introducing envonmental concerns into popular fiction and Dorsey does instill some Florida history in his books but sensationalist books have too much advantage while some insightful books are left to be forgotten.

I recommend Carl Hiasson for fiction. A great satirist who knows Florida well from his work as an investigative journalist at the Miami Herald. Some of his work is hilarious while hitting hard at local government corruption et al.

You should read Sick Puppy -- IMHO his best.

I share very many of your authors. My motto: "Don't just read good books, read only the best".

#10 bookmonk8888
"Carl Hiasson for fiction. A great satirist who knows Florida well from his work as an investigative journalist at the Miami Herald."

I would amend that to "who knows South Florida well."

#13 TallyDi

Yes, I agree. Thanks for pointing it out.

Quite the list. And - I must say - I do agree with most all of it. In particular, Alas, Babylon, Mile Zero, and Ninety-Two In The Shade are all very high on my list of all-time Florida favorites. I was also especially happy to see Hurston and Pratt included. I think we'd all agree the crux of the conversation shifts noticeably if we were to expand to include influential short stories, essays, and non-fiction.

I find I'm most torn with the inclusion of Condominium. JDM is one of my all-time favorite authors. However, that being said, I don't know that I could honestly include a "single" work of his as one of the "most influential Florida novels.

I believe there is probably a second category here of Florida authors (or authors whose work is based in Florida) where the body of work is influential either from a literary or social perspective with regard to the state. A category such as that would then lend itself better to inclusion of such authors as JDM, Hiasson, Randy Wayne White, Lawrence Sanders, Carolina Garcia-Aguilera, etc.

"Remembering Blue" by Connie May Fowler is a beaultfully written fiction based on the Florida Gulf Coast. I lived on the Gulf Coast for 15 years, and her depictions of the landscape was right on. It's a love story at its core, but her language is elegant yet edgy and held my interest until the end. it was written in 2001, so its not 18 years old yet, but i just thought i'd mention it.

I live in Bradenton and must read this book. Thanks for pointing it out.

Topic of this thread : Most influential Florida novels.

Numerous novels set in Florida but not by Floridian writers. A big difference.

The Florida Humanities Council just compiled a list of books for people who want to learn about Florida. They chose 9...then added a second list of 11.

The original 9:

HOW TO LEAVE HIALEAH, Jennine Capó Crucet, 2009: A collection of short stories offering fascinating glimpses of the Cuban exile community in South Florida.
443878::FLORIDA: A SHORT HISTORY, gannonmichael::Michael Gannon, 1993, revised in 2003: Millennia packed into a slim, readable volume.
1445180::THE AFRICAN-AMERICAN HERITAGE OF FLORIDA, colburndavid::David Colburn, landersjane::Jane Landers, eds., 1995: An anthology of the role African Americans have played in Florida’s development since the Age of Discovery’s Spanish explorers.
399519::THE EVERGLADES: RIVER OF GRASS, Marjory Stoneman Douglas, 1947: This changed the nation’s perception of the Everglades, from wasteland to treasure.
1694536::FLORIDA: ITS SCENERY, CLIMATE, AND HISTORY, laniersidney::Sidney Lanier, 1876: An interesting look at 19th-century Florida, commissioned by the Atlantic Coast Line railroad to promote the state.
46572::THE YEARLING, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, 1939: This Pulitzer winner captures the isolation and challenges of a family living in barely settled Florida.
THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD, Zora Neale Hurston, 1937: A masterpiece once nearly forgotten, set mostly in an African-American town.
A LAND REMEMBERED, Patrick Smith, 1984: A multigenerational saga about Florida settlers who carve homes out of a fierce wilderness, eventually exploiting it.
LAND OF SUNSHINE, STATE OF DREAMS, Gary Mormino, 2005: The growth and evolution of Florida, from post-WWII backwater to today’s megastate.
BIZARRE FLORIDA / SUNSHINE NOIR: This is the genre we mentioned. In the subcategory of Bizarre, well, the authors of this fiction (including Carl Hiaasen and Tim Dorsey) say they get their ideas directly from the newspapers. In the Noir subcategory, check out such authors as Randy Wayne White, Edna Buchanan, James Hall, the late John D. McDonald, and relative newcomers like Jonathon King, Glynn Marsh Alam, and Michael Lister.

and the link to the next 11...

http://www.flahumforms.org/facebook/Essential%20Florida%20Books-Part%20II.pdf

#19 meredithfl - Thanks for posting! I've read Their Eyes Were Watching God by Hurston's book, Florida: A Short History by Michael Gannon, and The Swamp by Michael Grunwald (extended list). I liked them all a lot, although Gannon's book is very brief. I think it serves mainly as a gateway to other stuff.

Never read a Harry Crews work before so, I couldn't comment. Celebration is not considered his best work but it is easy to see Harry Crews will be Too Much for many people and maybe Too Much for some dirty old men. He could have backed off some and kept the integrity of the book but he relies on shock value. He does have talent but I can tell he is his own enemy. He does some great Southern dialogue. I'll give one of his higher rated books a try but this book was Too Much. Not for the prudish.

My previous comment needs amending, now that I know more about the author. I just started Getting Naked with Harry Crews and I now retract that relies on shock value comment. Harry Crews predates the shock jocks and the escalating use of shock and he apparently uses it for honest reasons. I still want to kick him for using a dirty, dirty mop and the cat didn't fit the character. I'm sure I have a better cat idea. And a woman dealing with a milestone age would have brought more depth to the character and reduce some of the ick, younger people would see. A bit more believability would have done wonders. I am already impressed by this book of interviews and I just started.

I joined the group today and am surprised no one has mentioned Randy Wayne White. While he wasn't born in Florida, most of his working life before and during his writing career has been in the Sanibel/Pine Island area. This is also the location of his 17 Doc Ford books.

I'm very fond of Randy Wayne White -- great feel for the ecology of Florida. I think his post- Hurricane Charley Dark Light is quite brilliant, but I've thoroughly enjoyed his other books too.

Harry Crews was a professor at the junior college I attended. He published Gospel Singer at that time but I never read it because I found him so abrasive.