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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
There are some questions even the author of "Sick Puppy" can't be asked.
Jan 31, 2000 | I have it in my head to ask Carl Hiaasen, "Did you make up the word 'fellatrixes,' or is it a common Florida term?" The word appears in his new comic-thriller "Sick Puppy." It designates a woman who performs "world-class" fellatio. But Hiaasen and I are lunching at the Stanhope Hotel, across the street from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan. The atmosphere is too refined to discuss "fellatrixes." Instead I ask this native son of Florida if there is a term to describe native sons of Florida.
"Endangered species," Hiaasen answers. "The bumper stickers have the state of Florida on them and the word 'native.' That's the badge of pride." Does he have one? "No. I'm not a big bumper-sticker guy."
Figures. Carl Hiaasen seems as classy as the Stanhope. He is slender and refined, yet you can imagine him doing something like yanking a revolver out of his jacket and shooting up the ceiling as he drinks vodka straight out of a bottle. Hiaasen seems like the wayward son of old Newport, R.I., money, yet he is a second-generation child of Fort Lauderdale. His grandfather was born at the turn of the last century in a godforsaken place called Devil's Lake, N.D. "He'd just come over from Norway," Hiaasen informs me. "He didn't learn to speak English until he was 14. It was a Norwegian farming community. Sod houses. The whole routine. First he was a preacher, then he went to law school. One of his professors asked him to come down and work for him in Florida. My grandfather was thrilled to get away from cold winters. He'd almost died in a blizzard when he was a young boy. He packed up and started the first law practice in Fort Lauderdale in 1922. At that time it was 1,000 people. Now, of course, there's millions and millions."
Hiaasen sips some coffee. "They did a survey before Hurricane Andrew hit in '92. At that time more than 70 percent of the people living in South Florida had never been through a hurricane. They moved to a place that back in the 1940s was getting hit two or three times a year by hurricanes. Between Palm Beach and the Keys there's probably 4 and a half million people living on the Gold Coast, which is a bull's-eye in terms of tropical storms. They don't know that. They don't care."
A Stanhope waiter slides up for our order. It's noon. Still early for lunch. The place is empty. Subdued Fifth Avenue winter light flows in through sheer curtains. The emptiness only adds to the civilized feel somehow. Hiaasen orders salmon. That's a civilized thing to eat. I order it as well.
Now, I was raised in Southern California -- the onetime capital of American noir. But no longer. Florida has stolen noir's mantle. Hiaasen agrees. "Very strange how it's evolved. John D. MacDonald saw the shit storm coming. His books would have these great Travis McGee monologues about what was going wrong with Florida, long before it was fashionable to be worried about what was going wrong with the state."
I'm so glad he mentioned John D. MacDonald. He was a Floridian pulp god. He seems to be out of favor today, but MacDonald's books are dynamite. "Did you ever meet him?" I ask Hiaasen.
"For my first novel, 'Tourist Season,' he sent me a very nice note. It was flattering. Unsolicited. Before I could meet him, he died." Hiaasen pauses. "One time I sat next to him at a Jimmy Buffett concert and I was afraid to introduce myself."
"You're kidding!"
Hiaasen gives a sheepish smile. "No. I was too shy to introduce myself. MacDonald was there with his wife."
"Was he digging the music?"
"Oh yes. Very much. He was a very cool guy. But even then he was the only one."
