Kick Ass: Selected Columns of Carl Hiaasen (Hardcover)

by Carl Hiaasen (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Kirkus Reviews
A public service to his many fans, this compendium of Miami Herald columns by best-selling novelist Carl Hiaasen (Lucky You, 1997, etc.) reveals an angry, alert civic muckraker in the pugilistic vein of Mencken or Royko. Though best known for his ribald crime fiction, with its meticulous universe of South Florida idiocy and venal conspiracy, Hiaasen cut his teeth as an investigative reporter, and this spirit is strong in both his chosen subjects and his wry attention to unforgiving evidentiary detail. As editor Stevenson notes, the collections thrust, which she constructed by sifting through Hiaasens 1300-plus columns, was to present his advocacy of realistic growth and decent government in Florida. Along the way Hiaasen stops to gut innumerable big fishcrooked politicians, rogue cops, insensate tourists, swollen developerswithin a rough chronology reaching back to the cocaine-crazed Reagan '80s. Although Hiaasen is a truly funny writer, a stern moral compass lies beneath his slapstick. His quixotic outrage regarding the despoliation of his home state (cf. the columnist/terrorist of his Tourist Season, 1986) is as unforgiving as an Uzi, as authentic as a Waffle House breakfast. Hiaasens zestful attacks on Miamis many embarrassing or indicted leaders end up addressing the threats posed, for instance, by the crash overpopulation of Florida, epitomized by the havoc wreaked by Hurricane Andrew upon shoddy developments, a dire issue that pro-business boosters (e.g., The Mouse) labor to minimize. But even the loopier pieces (tame dachshund-eating alligators, Geraldo Riveras faked drug raids) are informed by Hiaasens unforgiving focus upon the social rot beneath the zany facade. Such columns, like his fiction, reveal Hiaasen as a crystalline, pitiless seer of human weakness in much the same vein as his Floridian forbears, Charles Willeford and Harry Crews. Deeply satisfying, both for what it reveals of the serious priorities of a supposedly light novelist and for the outrageous epic of Florida profiteering and entropy within. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Review
...this collection of lively and well-reported pieces... illuminated by all the wit and keen descriptive powers of his fiction. -- Salon.com

Carl Hiaasen is one of America's finest novelists. -- Pete Hamill

Reminiscent of the snarky, opinionated newspaper articles of the great Mark Twain, Hiaasen's columns are finely crafted little gems. -- Booklist --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 448 pages
• Publisher: University Press of Florida; 1st edition (October 31, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0813017173
• ISBN-13: 978-0813017174
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.3 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #94,881 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

58 of 60 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars And you thought his novels were strange, January 27, 2000

By	Doug Vaughn (Washington, Dc USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

The novels of Carl Hiaasen are darkly comic visions of the hell that greed and overdevelopment have created in much of south Florida. This book, a collection of his newspaper columns for the Miami Herald, reveals much about the origins of that vision. In these columns Hiaasen emerges as a fierce, intelligent and tireless critic of corrupt politicians, thoughtless overdevelopment, hypocracy and human stupidity generally. These columns, some about local Miami politics and crime, some about Florida and some about the state of America generally, all contain elements of clear thinking, bitter humor and genuine indignation. His choice of subjects shows his eye for irony and the columns can be read both for information and for his humorous take on the subject.

Like Molly Ivens, who can speak the truth and make us laugh about things that are probably worthy of tears, Hiaasen manages to ease the pain of much that he reveals in the columns by recasting it as comedy. He makes us laugh first, and then leaves us with troubled thoughts. Makes me wish he wrote for the Washington Post. The citizens of D.C. could use a good laugh at much that goes on. We just don't have a Carl Hiaasen here to do it justice.

Reading this book won't make one want to move to Miami, but it will make one want to read more Hiaasen. Always a pleasure.

40 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Will The Little Old Lady From Dubuque Enjoy This?, January 21, 2000

By	Robert Derenthal "bucherwurm" (California United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Many of us enjoy CH's humorous novels, but will we non-Floridians enjoy reading his Miami Herald newspaper columns? What pleasure can we get from reading about the arcane politics and goings on in a city far distant from our own home?

Quite a bit actually. You see Miami seems to be a very strange place, and Mr. Hiaasen uses his formidable talent to poke fun at the poor city's innumerable peccadilloes. He considers Corruption in Politics to be one of the town's main industries, and gives us a lot of drug smuggling; indifference to the environment; tourist murders; locking up clowns; swimming in waters contaminated with fecal matter. Laughing at Miami's problems might even help us temporarily forget similar problems in our own hometown.

As they often say, truth is stranger than fiction. And often funnier, I might add. It's good Carl Hiaasen...and you really get your money's worth. It's no slim tome of essays; there are over 200 columns reprinted here giving us 450 pages of chuckles.

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Essential. Yes, for you, too., May 10, 2000

By	BlueStar "estrellaazul" (Florida) - See all my reviews

I know what you are thinking: I'm not a Florida resident. Why should I care about what some newspaper columnist wrote about a local scandal in the Miami Herald in 1987?

There's a lot more reasons for buying this book than you'd expect.

If you appreciate Hiaasen's "fiction," you'll love to read about the fountain of avarice and corruption from which it came.

If you are at all interested in the reality of politics and society in this country, this book will give you an eyeful.

And if you do happen to be a Florida citizen--or even a Florida visitor--you'll be well-served to get a synopsis of South Florida history as witnessed by Carl Hiaasen in the 15 years (and counting) that he's served as one of the Herald's most acerbic, witty, and controversial voices.