Life Amongst the Coconuts

Carl Hiaasen is a reporter for the The Miami Herald, who like any number of reporters has taken to writing books. He's amongst the talented few who can do both.

He has previously produced 11 novels, some of which have genuinely gone into bestseller territory. There is a continuing of stream numbnut characters held between terrific hardcover dust jackets that evoke simplicity and the pastel colors of South Beach, Florida. If covers alone sold books, Mr. Hiassen's work would be easy: he wouldn't have to put anything worth reading inside. Lucky for us, he takes his work seriously enough to give us not only some commentary on the culture around us, but some choice strings of words that may come in handy if we're provoked enough.

As a reporter, Mr. Hiaasen knows the waterfront. The story is set mostly in southern Florida, Keys included, on land, water, and where crocodiles crap.

The characters in his latest novel, 'Star Island' should be familiar to anyone who has fairly recently sat in front of a TV, a computer screen, read a photo caption, or had the radio on. This should blanket anyone who hasn't been in a coma in the last 10 years, or so.

The story centers around Cherry Pye, a vacant-headed female pop-star singer who hasn't yet held a pharmagological susbstance she doesn't want to ingest, who is surrounded by an entourage of her parents and paid flunkies, who if they can't do what's best for Cherry, will at least do what's best for themselves. It's a familiar world.

Then there are the outsiders who try and crash what happens around Cherry and turn it into cash. The 'photo journalists,' and one in particular, whose uncut fingernails don't even reach the lowest rung of decency.

There is also a recurring character, an unhinged, one-eyed, eco-terrorist former governor of Florida who goes by the name of Skink. Rhymes with sink, which is what happens to you when you step in quicksand or speculate in Florida real estate.

There are other colorful walk-ons, like the substitute security guard whose thoughts on reincarnation are as novel as they are completely understandable, given the hormones cruising through his body.

And when Mr. Hiaasen's descriptions of people seem too stretched out you have to realize they are commentary. Like the father of the knocked-up daughter who has the largest collection of AK-47s in the Louisiana parish, causing a prospective son-in-law to leave the state. This father is not alone. He just happens to have the most AK-47s in working order. Others are behind him in quantity, that's all. There's more where he comes from.

You really don't have to have read the dust jacket flap to realize Mr. Hiaasen is a born and raised Floridian who has absorbed an invasion of humanity that really may not be a gorgeous mosaic but is more like a collection of people with IQs that ruin the state's average. The only person who meets death in the novel is surely Mr. Hiaasen's least loved person on earth.

The story of course has an ending. But the story isn't really over. Just stay out of a coma, and you'll keep getting chapters somehow.

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