Carl Hiaasen loves takes the craziness that is Florida (mostly south Florida), exposing it, amplifying it in some cases, and using it to make something funny. You’ll generally find Hiaasen’s books in the mystery section, but they aren’t really mysteries. His writing is more like a literary Three Stooges.
In Nature Girl, the main character is Honey Santana. She’s a bit unhinged. She wants a civil world quite unlike the real world. So when things aren’t quite up to snuff, she goes to extremes to set things right. Here, she’s interrupted at dinner by a telemarketer, who she tells off and gets him to swear back at her, causing him to be fired (unbeknownst to her). But that’s not enough for her, so she schemes to lure him to Florida, where she takes him on an ecotour
of a mosquito-infested swamp where she intends to lecture him.
In the swamp hides Sammy Tigertail, a half Seminole/half white teenager. He deeply resents his his white heritage, but can’t exactly live off the land as an Indian might. He’s out there because he was present when a tourist died, and he panicked and hid the body. He’s not under suspicion but he ditches civilization anyway.
And following Honey out to the swamp is Piejack, her former boss at a fishmarket. He made an ill-advised pass at Honey, which resulted in her slamming a crab mallet into his crotch and immediately quitting. He’s in love, in a sick, twisted, stalker way.
The three of them collide on Dismal Key, along with a host of other characters: Honey’s ex-husband, her son Fry, a coed who has a crush on Sammy, Boyd Shreave (the telemarketer), and Eugenie Fonda (the telemarketer’s bored paramour).
Like all Hiaasen stories, this one just keeps getting worse. By that, I mean that he keeps escalating the plot to make the circumstances for his characters worse. In Hiaasen’s hands, it’s funny. Unfortunately, retelling more than the bare basics just falls short. There aren’t many who can do what Hiaasen does.
Title: Nature girl
Author: Carl Hiaasen
Imprint / publisher: Knopf / Random House
Format: Hardcover
Length: 305 p.
Publication date: November 2006
ISBN-10: 0-307-26299-5
Subject: Manic-depressive illness — Fiction
Subject: Florida — Fiction
Subject: Ten Thousand Islands National Wildlife Refuge (Fla.) — Fiction
LC classification: PS3558.I217 N39 2006
