It could have been straight out of a Carl Hiaasen novel, only Hiaasen wasn’t making this up. Off to Chicago on book tour for his latest, “Skink – No Surrender,” he got caught up in the morass of delayed flights caused when someone set fire to a control center. “It was a mess – on the plane, off again.” He finally made it to his signing, but the next day, flights were still backlogged; he was having to drive from Chicago to Cincinnati.
Hiaasen isn’t expected to hit any travel snags when he heads to the Vero Beach Book Center Friday night. After all, he only has to cross the bridge. There, Vero’s most celebrated author will have something to celebrate himself: “Skink—No Surrender” has just been long-listed for a National Book Award for Young People in Literature. It is one of ten selected by a five-judge panel among 300 publisher submissions.
The nomination in mid-September caught Hiaasen totally off-guard.
“I honestly didn’t know they were voting,” he says. “It was the same thing with the Newbery Honor.” That award was for “Hoot,” his first children’s book, published in 2003. National Book Award finalists will be announced October 15 on NPR’s Morning Edition.
He has written 14 satirical thrillers for adults, plus the three he co-wrote with his close friend and fellow journalist, the late Bill Montalbano. He’s also written five non-fiction books, including a collection of his columns for the Miami Herald, which he still produces nearly every week.
While his other kids’ books — “Scat”, “Flush” and “Chomp” followed the hugely successful “Hoot” – were for readers 10 and older, this is Hiaasen’s first book aimed at the teenage and young adult market, and adults are reading it too.
It’s the story of 14-year-old cousins: Richard is out to rescue Malley after she takes off with somebody she met on the Internet. Richard gets help from somebody buried under the sand on the beach, breathing through a drinking straw: Skink, the lunatic one-eyed former Florida governor who first appeared in the Hiaasen classic, “Double Whammy,” 25 years ago. Skink has shown up in six more novels but this is his first foray into juvenile territory. Never mind the dangers of strangers on the Internet – the ex-gov and concerned cuz encounter classic Hiaasen-hatched hazards in the wilds of the Florida panhandle, though home base for the two teens is a town very much like Vero Beach. “But it could be anywhere from Juno Beach to New Smyrna,” Hiaasen says. He and he family made a trip down the river in the book, just to get a sense of its possibilities.
In real life, the threats most concerning to Hiaasen are environmental. He grew up on the eastern edge of the Everglades in Plantation, not far from Fort Lauderdale, and before moving to Vero in 2005, lived in a stilt house in the Florida Keys.
Fishing is still his passion – two years ago, he was named Angler of the Year by Fly Rod and Reel magazine not just for his long winning streak in bonefish tournaments but for the fact that his children’s books have done so much to attach Florida’s kids to the state’s near-fantastical wilderness.
Now, his family is expanding on the theme: son Quinn, a freshman at Vero Beach High School, and wife Fenia have worked with some of Quinn’s friends to organize Lines in the Lagoon, a youth fishing tournament scheduled for October 18 to benefit lagoon preservation.
“These kids are fired up,” he says. “When I was a kid, we didn’t think about it. We’d see a place and the water would be all funky and think oh, what happened, but we’d never think about taking to the next step. It’s such an important connection.”
For more information on that effort go to www.linesinthelagoon.com.
Hiaasen’s Book Center appearance starts at 6 p.m. Friday (Oct.3) with an introduction expected from the Book Center’s new Young Adult Book Club. Hiaasen has promoted his books there “since Day One,” says Cynthia Callandar, marketing director, adding that he’s also introduced other writers, including fellow Herald writer Dave Barry. “Fingers crossed,” says Callandar, that Barry could be headed this way again soon to promote his new book, this one on the subject of parenting: “You Can Date Boys When You’re Forty.”
For help keeping track of things like author appearances, Art Mundo in Fort Pierce is staging its annual Calendart fundraiser, auctioning off calendars made up of 12 selected original works from 36 artists. The art works go on preview Wednesday at the monthly Art Walk from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.
“This is what we call the kick-off,” says oil painter Julie Lounibos, who has a studio at Art Mundo. “It’s really the only chance that people have to come and see all the art that goes into the calendars before they’re assembled on Sunday.”
Among those participating: Gretchen Green, whose colorful masks are on display at Vero’s Emerson Center. (See Ellen Fischer’s profile of Green in this issue.)
The calendars will be awarded by raffle at a party at the Fort Pierce Yacht Club Nov. 8. The $25 admission fee gets you three raffle tickets, plus hors d’oeuvres to go with the cash bar. That night, a bona fide auctioneer handles the raffle and a silent auction for art work. “It’s just a hoot,” says Lounibos. “It’s wonderfully entertaining.”
If you end up at Wednesday’s Art Walk, check out 121 Tapas, in the Renaissance building on the river. Reportedly the most happening spot downtown these days, 121 opened two years ago with beer, wine and small plates to be had at the bar or at outside tables. We hear the place is typically jammed by 10 p.m. Art Mundo is at 111 Orange Ave. The tapas bar is at 121 Melody Lane, on the south end of the area where the Saturday Farmer’s Market is staged.
And then there’s Vero’s Art Stroll this Friday. The downtown arts district has ridden out the summer doldrums even as hope is all but extinguished for an arts center in the historic diesel plant, and despite the loss of a key gallery, Darby Fine Art, which closed at the end of last season.
Opened two years ago by George and Linda O’Malley, Darby started out with a bang, shipping large – and often pricey – works in from across the country. Artists flew in for openings, adding a cosmopolitan air to the strolls; the O’Malleys, who live beachside, brought in a substantial island clientele. Soon after opening, though, the focus shifted to local artists, and the handsome space attracted some of the best. On stroll nights, the place was jammed.
“They were some of the best people I’ve ever worked with,” sculptor Bob Coon said of the O’Malleys.
Ed Uttridge too felt nothing but gratitude toward the O’Malleys, who took in several of the kinetic sculptures he and his daughter Darlene Davis co-produce. “They were the very first people we showed them to,” he says. He said the O’Malleys even installed an overhead fan to make air circulate around the spiral wooden sculptures so they would spin.
Across the street at Tiger Lily, summer proved a time to regroup, though several hundred still passed through on stroll nights in June, July and August.
Some time ago, Tiger Lily eased up on the free offerings at the strolls, eliminating hors d’oeuvres and serving only wine and water so the gallery’s six women artists can forgo hostess duties and instead talk about their art, said artist/owner Shotsi LaJoie. That, after all, is the point of the strolls.
“People don’t feel self-conscious asking questions at the strolls,” LaJoie notes. “It’s different than if you walk into a gallery and you’re the only person there.”
Down the street, Flametree Clay Gallery has the opposite refreshment strategy. “We don’t serve wine anymore but we always have food and we make it from scratch,” says Karen Economou, a painter and sculptor who goes by Keko.
Flametree, which shares a space with the Cultural Council’s offices, is busy planning themes for next season, and promises to stage another Sexpot show of off-color and erotic art. Last year’s show drew over 1,000 visitors to the gallery’s back room – marked with a red light.
“That’s the one thing we can count on: prurient interest,” says Flametree’s Maria Sparsis.
