Carl Hiassen
wrote the little book, Assume the Worst
(2018), as the "graduation speech you'll never hear." He wrote it to
his son, Quinn, upon his commencement from high school that year. The advice as far as Hiaasen is concerned is
meant for anyone. It might be a bit too honest, and perhaps a tad pessimistic,
for many of us. Hiaasen argues against some of the favorite adages we hear all
the time, like "Live Each Day As If It's Your Last" and "If You
Set Your Mind to It, You Can Be Anything You Want to Be." His conflict with these sentiments? If you
lived every day like it was your last, you'd undoubtedly be broke, irrelevant,
and possibly in prison. And can you really be the next Willy Mays or Bill
Gates? Probably not. Hiassen's adage? "Self-delusion is no virtue."
Hiaasen
proclaims that it's more important to "figure out what you're good at and
get better at it." Or, more simplistically and realistically, "live
each day as if your rent is due tomorrow."
Hiaasen has
obviously taken his own advice well. He's managed to work at what he is best at
and has made the rent payments, as well. Publisher Penguin-Random House interviewed
Hiaasen in a "Meet the Author" episode last year, and Hiaasen admits
that he is paid to "entertain and make people turn pages."
And people
have turned millions of pages in Hiaasen's books since the late 1980s.
Carl Hiaasen
was born in Florida in 1953 and has lived there all his life. He earned a
journalism degree from the University of Florida four years after graduating
from high school. He missed his college graduation because the small-town
newspaper in Cocoa, Florida (Cocoa Today)
that hired him expected him to show up to work that day.
A few years
later, Hiaasen was hired to work on the Miami Herald city desk and its Sunday
magazine. There he excelled at investigative journalism, exposing corruption in
Florida, efforts at war with the environment, and over-development that has
wounded Florida's natural beauty. He began writing weekly columns for the Miami
Herald in 1985 and continues to this day. Those columns have been published in
three volumes: Kick Ass (1999), Paradise Screwed (2001), and Dance of the Reptiles (2014).
Hiaasen is
most well-known outside of Florida for the novels he began writing in his spare
time starting in the '80s. The first three were co-authored with a colleague.
Hiaasen struck out on his own in 1986 with Tourist Season and hasn't stopped
writing them since – he is the author of fourteen novels for adults and six for
younger readers.
In 2003 he
was honored with the Newbery Award for his bestselling children's book Hoot. It was made into a family movie in
2006. His later novels for children, Flush,
Scat, Chomp, and Skink-No Surrender,
have been favorites among students and teachers in elementary and middle
school. Nineteen of Hiaasen's novels have been on the New York Times Bestseller
lists, and many have been translated into as many as 34 languages.
I became a
fan of Carl Hiaasen after reading his eighth novel, Sick Puppy, published in 2000, and I began binge-reading the
earlier ones. They are irreverent and full of unsavory characters and Florida
sunshine. They are a perfect recipe for fun.
Two of
Hiaasen's favorite writing tricks have managed always to tickle my fancy. One
is his use of the two-word title beginning with Tourist Season through the
thirteen others: Skinny Dip, Sick Puppy,
Bad Monkey, Strip Tease, Stormy Weather, Nature Girl, Star Island, Double
Whammy, Native Tongue, Skin Tight, Lucky You, Basket Case, and Razor Girl.
The other
trick is the glorious use of real-life Florida that he finds in Floridian
newspapers. If you've never heard of, or Googled, "Florida Man," you
haven't discovered the never-ending litany of idiotic habits and behaviors of,
well, Florida Man. As an example, Esquire Magazine listed ninety of the Wildest
Florida Man Headlines from January through March 2019. January included "Florida Man Learns
Hard Way He Stole Laxatives, Not Opioids". February 6 boasts "Florida
Man Tried to Run Over Son Because He Didn't Want to Take a Bath" and a
March 11 headline states "Florida Man Accused of Intentionally Pressure
Washing His Neighbor."
Okay, you
get the picture, and funnily enough, Hiaasen admits that he uses some of these
character flaws proven by newspaper accounts as the basis for events or
character description in his novels.
Maybe,
though, I'm drawn to Hiassen because we have several things in common. We both
graduated high school in 1970, and we both learned to write before the age of 8
on manual typewriters given to us by our fathers.
Hiaasen and
I both grew up near the ocean – he on Florida's east coast and I on
California's west coast and we were each one of four children in our respective
families. Most importantly, though, we both have an unusually fine appreciation
for the dark humor found in the mistakes or idiotic behavior of criminals.
Sadly, Carl Hiaasen's
only brother, Rob, was killed in a mass shooting at The Capital offices in
Annapolis, in the summer of 2018. Rob followed in his older brother's
footsteps, working as an assistant editor and columnist at a city newspaper.
Hiaasen was devastated by the news. Yet, he continues to write his weekly
columns for the Miami Herald. He still exposes Florida corruption and
disrespect for Florida's environment, all the while ticking off many in South
Florida with his honesty. Given the fact that he has continued to publish one
of his novels every three or four years, I imagine he has another in the works.
Certainly, there are enough real stories in Florida's newspapers to supply
characters and plot lines for more hilarity.
