"A potpourri of short stories that serves up more style and substance, more suspense and sensuality, than most of the titles on the current best-seller list."—Tampa Tribune
Like an album of snapshots from a tropical vacation, this collection of seventeen stories captures Florida places and characters transformed by the literary imagination of some of America’s finest short fiction writers like Stephen Crane.
The stories range widely across Florida history and landscapes—St. Petersburg in the 20s, Key West and Alachua County in the 30s, Coconut Grove and Jacksonville in the 50s, Miami Beach in the 60s, and Ft. Lauderdale in the 70s. Andrew Lytle recounts violent events in an Indian village during the Spanish rule. Sarah Orne Jewett and Stephen Crane treat maritime Florida in the 19th century while Hemingway and Philip Wylie present stories of the 20th century. From the pinewoods of northern Florida, through cracker farms, boom towns, and coastal suburbs, to the swamps and the Keys, we meet characters both common and extraordinary: moonshiners, socialites, carnies, sailors, scavengers, and fugitives.
McCarthy’s collection reveals the impact of a rich human and natural environment on the work of these distinguished writers. In the process it captures the uniquely Floridian coincidence of the exotic and mundane.
