From Library Journal
A commercial fisherman, marijuana smuggler, and alligator hunter and poacher, Totch is a native son of Florida's southwesternmost coast, the Ten Thousand Islands. His natural-style storytelling enlivens his and his family's history of eking out a living on the edge of the Everglades. These memoirs--which begin with his pioneer grandparents in 1880, proceed to his childhood in the 1920s, and end up in the 1990s--give us a glimpse of a hard life of poverty and pride, honesty and crime. Totch lives by his own rules; he doesn't glorify or excuse his lifestyle but lays it out for us so that we can understand the strength it takes to survive on the edge. Recommended for folklore, ecology, and Florida history collections.
- Susan Hamburger, Univ. of Virginia Lib., Charlottesville
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
- Susan Hamburger, Univ. of Virginia Lib., Charlottesville
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
The colorful recollections of an Everglades old-timer, Loren "Totch" Brown, whose father was a moonshiner and who, himself, hunted alligators and smuggled marijuana. It was a hardscrabble life--particularly when it involved farming or fishing on the shell islands. Then again, it was a wonderful life; Totch always had a great time, it seems, hiring out to Hollywood and getting to know Peter Falk and Burl Ives, or running a charter and watching Richard Nixon fall from the boat and Ted Simmons stop to play ball with local school children. Totch was a principal source for Peter Matthiessen's 1990 Everglades novel, Killing Mister Watson, and Matthiessen contributes a heartfelt introduction. John Mort
