Catching up with book-blogging, part one

[brigdh]

Florida Roadkill by Tim Dorsey. The first in the long-running Serge Storms series, which has such neon-bright covers and memorable titles ("Nuclear Jellyfish", "Gator A-Go-Go", and "Atomic Lobster", for a few examples) that I've been meaning to check them out for ages. I was stymied by wanting – reasonably! – to start with the first book, but had some difficult finding it; it was published in 1999, which is practically historic by now.

But I have finally managed to find and read it and so I can say: it's pretty much the same as Carl Hiaasen. Which isn't a criticism – I like Hiaasen! Sure, there are some differences: Dorsey's cast is a motley crew of amusing sociopaths, while Hiaasen usually throws in at least one good guy who vaguely resembles a real human to root for; Dorsey's plotting is somehow even looser and more of a string of random scenes than Hiaasen's; the violence is even more over-the-top, cartoonish, and slapsticky. But honestly, if someone had switched the authors' names on the cover, I wouldn't have noticed.

The plot is hard to summarize, since it's a collection of disjointed threads that only come together at the end in surprising ways. We have: Sean and Dave, two normal guys on a fishing trip; George Veale, sleazy dentist who has just embezzled $5 million; Mo Grenadine, a radio talk show host propelled into politics by appealing to the lowest, most racist, homophobic denominator; the most incompetent cocaine cartel in the world; a trio of wannabe Hell's Angels who, after getting kicked out of every motorcycle gang, become the resident guardians of a trailer park retirement home; a deadly pesticide; a fetishest obsessed with Barbie dolls; and an insurance company that manages to be evil even by the low, low standards of insurance companies. But the main characters, such as they are, are the trio of Serge, Coleman, and Sharon. Serge, who gives his name to the whole series, is a sociopath with an obsession with Florida history and trivia. His sidekick Coleman is dumb, good-natured, and usually too drunk or high to object to anything, and Sharon, the beautiful violent coke-fiend, joins the others for the sake of the money and drugs they accidentally accumulate on their way across Florida.

I enjoyed the book, but it's not exactly something I'd recommend to others unless you have a very particular taste. If jokes about the crazy exploits of 'Florida man', the weirder and more explicit the better, tickle your sense of humor, than this may be the book for you. Otherwise look for your mindless beach read elsewhere.


Jane Austen at Home by Lucy Worsley. A new biography of Jane Austen, structured around the various houses she lived in. It's a neat approach to organizing a life-story, though ultimately I don't think it influenced the text as much as I'd expected it to.

This is the first Austen biography I've read, so I can't say how it compares to others. It didn't include anything I was particularly shocked to learn, but then she didn't really have a life full of surprises, did she? Worsley describes herself as writing against the Austen family's early portrayal of Jane as a modest, virtuous aunt; she heavily emphasizes Jane's anger and sarcasm in her surviving letters, her ambition in seeing her books published and being paid for them, and the existence of her brother George, who was sent away to live with caregivers due to his epilepsy and whose existence was hidden by the family. It's an easy, enjoyable read, even if there doesn't seem to be much new or different here. Worsley does expect her audience to be very familiar with Austen's books, frequently dropping in allusions to characters or plots, but on the other hand, that's probably a fair assumption of the self-selecting audience of an Austen biography.

I liked it, but I wouldn't be surprised if there's a biography out there that does the job better.

I read this as an ARC via NetGalley.

Comments

[evelyn_b]

Thanks to you, I've just realized that I thought Tim Dorsey and Carl Hiaasen were the same person! And that I can probably give both of them a pass for the foreseeable future.

[brigdh]

Hahah, I think I did too! The whole "wacky Florida thrillers" is a surprisingly popular subgenre. There's Dave Barry too, those his books aren't quite as similar as the first two. Do other states have similar book series? I think like Florida's a bit unique in this.

[evelyn_b]

Not that I know of! There's a Wacky Southern Characters Do Heartwarming Wacky Things genre, but it's more regional than state-based; those can just as easily take place in East Texas as in Georgia. If I had to pick another state to get its own subgenre of suspiciously similar books, I'd guess Louisiana or Alaska - but I don't know any examples.

[brigdh]

Oh, good point! Louisana – or, rather, New Orleans specifically – does have its own subgenre of "vampires and/or goths brood sexily", with Anne Rice and Poppy Z Bright being the big authors there – plus Charlaine Harris, I suppose. I don't know if all her books are set in Louisiana, but the True Blood series was.

[ranalore]

I suspect the parts of Florida that people tend to think of when they think of stereotypical "wacky Florida" are unique enough to warrant their own subgenre, whereas the rest of the state* can easily be roped in with the more general "Southern thrillers" subgenre. And it's pretty true, as far as it goes, that there is a cultural sameness. Southern California, and specifically L.A., gets split out as its own subregion in thrillers, and so do Las Vegas and maybe NYC? Otherwise, it feels like it's pretty regional.

*Have I mentioned lately that I hate this state? I hate this state.

[brigdh]

True! I was thinking of it mostly as a marketing category, but I suppose some places really are just different, objectively.

[osprey_archer]

I read Jane Austen at Home too! I quite liked it, although it did make me want to read other Austen biographies for comparison, which perhaps shows that I did feel there was something a bit lacking about it even as I tore happily through it.

[brigdh]

Ha, yes. That's pretty much exactly my feelings about it. I would have liked more about the general history and culture of England during her life as well, but I suppose a lot of the intended audience would have felt that was a distraction from the main point.