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Carl Hiaasen
BIO
Carl Hiaasen was born and raised in Florida. He is the author of ten previous novels, including the best-selling SKINNY DIP, SICK PUPPY, and LUCKY YOU, and two best-selling children's books, HOOT and FLUSH. He also writes a weekly column for The Miami Herald.
AUTHOR TALK
July 2004
In this interview Carl Hiaasen, author of SKINNY DIP, discusses his career as a journalist and how his experience at a large newspaper helped him become a better writer. He also talks about the writers who have influenced him over the years, describes some of his favorite characters in his newest novel, and explains why he was so shocked at the success of his children's book, HOOT.
Q: How did you decide on the title of your new novel, SKINNY DIP?
CH: My late and dear friend, Warren Zevon, suggested the title as he was reading the manuscript a few weeks before he passed away. One of the main characters, Mick Stranahan, had appeared in an earlier novel of mine called SKIN TIGHT. Warren thought SKINNY DIP would tie the books together for readers, and would also be appropriate because the heroine of the new novel ends up naked in the ocean in the first chapter. My editor loved the title, but I wasn't surprised. Warren's songs had some of the best titles ever written in rock and roll.
Q: Was there a specific motivation to write SKINNY DIP?
CH: Yes, it's called a contract. If I don't write, they send nasty letters and turn their lawyers loose on me. Seriously, the idea for the plot came from a true story about a young woman who vanished off a cruise liner in the Caribbean during her honeymoon. She was never found, and to this day nobody knows what happened.
Q: Have you ever taken a cruise?
CH: I'm proud to say I've never been on a cruise, which is probably the main reason I still weigh only 165 pounds. The main recreation on cruise ships is eating, which is apparently a 24-hour activity. By the time your trip is over they've got to roll you down the gangplank.
Q: Which writers have influenced you over the years?
CH: Certain writers --- Joseph Heller, J.D. Salinger, John D. MacDonald --- made me want to become a writer myself. Others like John Irving and Tom Wolfe opened all kinds of doors in my head as I was reading them. I feel that way now when I read Jim Harrison and Tom McGuane and Martin Amis. They are all capable of that perfect, untouchable sentence.
Q: How did you decide to become a journalist?
CH: I thought it would be a cool way to learn how the world worked, and I was right. There's nothing that compares to working for a big-city newspaper, the breadth of experience you get in a very compressed amount of time. It can be grueling and aggravating and sad as hell, because so many true stories end badly. But it's also a terrific education for a young writer --- and it teaches you how to write fast, and how to write on days when you don't feel like writing.
Q: Tell us about Chaz Perrone.
CH: He's one of my favorite dirtball villains. Chaz is a crooked biologist who goes to work for a ruthless agri-business tycoon. He infiltrates the Everglades restoration project and fakes water-quality tests to make the farm baron look legal. But the thing I really like about Chaz is that he so ill at ease in nature. He can't stand the swamp, the gators, the snakes, the bugs --- he's managed to choose the single vocation for which he's completely unsuited, and in the end he regrets it. Deeply.
Q: Besides Chaz, do you have a favorite character in SKINNY DIP?
CH: I love Joey Perrone, Chaz's wife. I love the idea of her refusing to die when Chaz heaves her off the cruise ship in the first chapter. She's a romantic but she's also a pretty tough girl. She's not just after revenge --- she desperately wants to know why her husband would try to kill her on their second anniversary. This is a woman who realizes that she's married the ultimate creep, and by God she's going to get some answers.
Q: How do you decide when to reintroduce characters from previous novels?
CH: I bring back old characters only if they fit into the new story. Skink, the crazed ex-governor, makes a memorable cameo in SKINNY DIP simply because some of the characters wander into his swampy domain. Mick Stranahan was a very interesting guy but I couldn't fit him into another novel until now. He seemed like the perfect choice to rescue Joey Perrone because he still lives on an island in Biscayne Bay, not far from where she's floating. That's how it works. If everything fits together and the timing is right, I'll bring back a familiar face or two from the earlier books.
Q: Tell us about your children's book, HOOT, which was just released in paperback.
CH: HOOT is a story that I borrowed from the pages of my own childhood. It's about three kids who are trying to save a colony of little burrowing owls from being destroyed by a big company that's putting up a pancake house in their town. When I was kid growing up in South Florida, those little owls were all over the place. Now they're practically wiped out.
I wrote HOOT for my stepson, nieces and nephew, who were all in that ten-to-fourteen year old bracket. Because the book was personal, it was fun. I was astonished when it won a Newbery Honor. Completely blown away. Let's face it, if you looked closely at my grownup novels, I'm not the kind of writer who seemed a likely choice to cross over smoothly into children's fiction. It was sort of like asking Sam Peckinpah to do a re-make of "Mary Poppins." By some miracle, though, HOOT turned out well. I'm still amazed.
© Copyright 2004 by Carl Hiaasen. Reprinted with permission from the publisher, Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved.
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PAST INTERVIEW
May 14, 1999
Whoa, this man has some pretty strong feelings about Mickey Mouse --- and Disney! TBR's Roz Shea chatted it up with Carl Hiaasen and found out what Michael Eisner thinks about his attack on the Lead Rodent. Roz also has Hiaasen's thoughts on a series he wrote with Bill Montalbano, and she could not resist asking when we'll see her favorite Hiaasen character, Skink.
TBR: I want to zero in on the three Vintage Crime books, POWDER BURN, TRAP LINE, and A DEATH IN CHINA that you co-authored with Bill Montalbano that were recently republished. POWDER BURN and TRAP LINE take place shortly after the Cuban refugee problem that arose when Castro emptied his jails during the Carter administration. A DEATH IN CHINA provides a fascinating look at Red China before Tiananmen Square. Each is a snapshot of that era. Whose decision was it to republish these books, and why?
CH: Last year vintage approached me and Bill Montalbano about reprinting POWDER BURN, TRAP LINE and A DEATH IN CHINA. We were both excited, since the books had been out of print in this country for a few years. They had been republished in Great Britain, though, and were well-received. Maybe that is why Vintage was interested in putting them out again in the states.
TBR: The jacket blurbs list you as an investigative reporter and columnist for the Miami Herald, and Montalbano as a foreign correspondent. How did this collaboration come about? Had you or Montalbano written any books on your own prior to POWDER BURN?
CH: Bill worked as an editor on a number of stories I did in the late seventies about drug smuggling and the cocaine wars in Miami. He thought it would make a great subject for a novel, and that's how POWDER BURN got started. In particular, we were inspired by a real-life drug assassin known as "El Loco," who became "El Mono" in the novel.
Collaborating is difficult under any circumstances. It helped that Bill and I were great friends, and fellow newspaper reporters, because journalists learn to be thick-skinned when it comes to criticism. We were tough on each other, but we had to be. He had to write in a single voice -- not his, or mine, but a combination. Somehow it worked, because nobody who knew us was able to guess which one had written which chapters.
TBR: You are known for gathering stray plot threads into tidy, fast-paced and wicked endings. Your readers can almost be heard uttering a sibilant "Yessssss" as the bad guys get their just desserts in unusual, satisfying, and usually grisly ways. There is a hint of this in these early novels, but the style is not quite as far out as in your later works. Was this due to tempering by Montalbano, or did you acquire your current comedic style as you wrote more novels?
CH: My own novels are much different in tone because it's just me. The sardonic matter-of-fact narrative is truly my voice, my view of the world, for better or worse. By contrast, Bill and I didn't set out to write satire, or to make political statements. We set out to write fast-moving, tightly plotted thrillers -- so naturally the pace, structure and tone were all different from the novels I write today.
TBR: Were Chemo and Skink, a couple of seriously lunatic characters in your later novels, gestating in your imagination as you wrote POWDER BURN and TRAP LINE? I thought I detected a certain manic quality in a couple of your minor characters in these books.
CH: When were writing together, neither Bill nor I was thinking ahead to solo projects, or filing away colorful characters for future use. Obviously both of our individual writing styles were subordinated in favor of that single voice, as I said before. But that didn't mean we couldn't get off a few distinctive riffs now and then. So, sure, there's a few depraved Hiaasen touches in those early books.
TBR: What role did investigative reporting play in your becoming a novelist?
CH: Many authors, good and bad, start out as journalists. Certainly my own experiences at The Miami Herald introduced me to scores and scores of real-life characters who could've walked out of the pages of a novel. Journalism teaches you how the world works, how people really talk, how people really act. All the skills required of a good reporter -- all those powers of observation -- are required of a novelist, as well.
In my case, I had the good fortune of working in South Florida, one of the weirdest, most screwed-up places on the planet. Nothing that happens in my novels, or the ones I wrote with Bill, couldn't happen (or hasn't already happened) in real life. Nothing.
TBR: Was A DEATH IN CHINA ever made into a movie? This fascinating look at Red China before the events at Tiananmen Square and the intricate plot surrounding smuggling artifacts from the archaeological dig at Qin's tomb kept me up turning pages all night. Was this story line based on actual experiences by Montalbano?
CH: A DEATH IN CHINA wasn't ever made into a movie, though it should have been. We pulled that one straight out of Bill's reporting in the early days, when Beijing first opened up to Western journalists. The smuggling of ancient artifacts was, as still is, a huge enterprise in China. Bill had written about it extensively, and visited the fantastic tombs described in the book.
TBR: Tell me, did TEAM RODENT help you achieve your dream to be barred for life from Disneyland? As a journalist, did you cover stories on the construction and expansion of Disney World, or was this essay based on research conducted for the article?
CH: TEAM RODENT was based on reporting I'd done about Disney World over many years, as well as more recent research and news stories. It hasn't yet gotten me banned from the Magic Kingdom, but it certainly ticked off Michael Eisner, which makes me deliriously happy.
TBR: STRIP TEASE was recently made into a movie starring Demi Moore. Many of our readers much preferred the book to the movie. What is your opinion of the movie? Did you have any control over production or the script?
CH: It's a deadly thing when novelists start taking the movie business seriously. Certainly I wish STRIP TEASE would have been a better film, but I also know that my books are extraordinarily difficult to adapt. So much of the humor is in the narrative tone, which makes it hard to put up on the screen. I have nothing but sympathy for the directors and screenwriters who've tackled my books over the years.
TBR: Have others of your books been optioned for movies, and if so, will you do the screenplays?
CH: SKIN TIGHT is due to begin filming in February, and I had nothing to do with the screenplay -- and that's good. I'm not a screenwriter.
TBR: STORMY WEATHER and LUCKY YOU are my favorites. Do you have a favorite book? If so, what about it makes it stand out above the others?
CH: Of all the books I've done, I'll always have great affection for the three I did with Bill Montalbano because that's how we first broke into the publishing business -- and also because he was such a good friend. Working with him was just plain fun, and we were getting paid peanuts, so we really had nothing to lose.
TBR: I have read all but one your South Florida mysteries. Are you working on another? Please tell me that my own personal hero, Skink, will be back.
CH: Skink, the roadkill-eating ex-governor, will return in the new novel I'm doing, which is due out next year. The title of the novel is SICK PUPPY; it's about a guy who kidnaps the dog of a sleazebag lobbyist and makes some very strange demands.
TBR: What books are your reading right now?
CH: Right now I'm reading Tom Wolfe's new novel, A MAN IN FULL, and also A WALK IN THE WOODS, by Bill Bryson.
TBR: Who are the authors that inspired you the most?
CH: I was influenced -- overwhelmed is a better word -- by writers like Joseph Heller and J.D. Salinger.
TBR: Do you give books as gifts? If so, what book would you give?
CH: For gifts, I prefer to give books about reptiles. With lots of pictures.
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