Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Carl Hiaasen and Bad Monkey


Today's guest post is by Kerry Hammond.



I attended an author talk and book signing with Carl Hiaasen at Denver's The Tattered Cover bookstore.  I am pleased to report that almost half of the people who came out to see Carl were men. I know that there are a lot of men out there who read fiction, but rarely see many attend book signings.  So at first I began to wonder: why here, why now, why did all the men come out for this specific event?  Then Carl opened his mouth and I realized that he is just as funny in person as he is in his books.  

He even promised that his latest book Bad Monkey is “just as depraved as the others.”  If you’ve read any of his work, you not only know what he means, but you’re thrilled at the same time. 

Carl is a native and resident of Florida who writes a regular column for the Miami Herald.  In addition to his newspaper career, he’s written young adult fiction, non-fiction, 14 novels on his own, 3 novels he co-wrote with Bill Montalbano, and even a short story.  (Hopefully I haven’t left anything out.) One of his books, Striptease, was made into a movie starring Burt Reynolds and Demi Moore, and there have been other movie options on his later books, but he’s not holding his breath.

His novels have such a deranged and interesting sense of humor that you can’t help but love them. His characters are like none you’ve ever read before, but sometimes resemble people you know.  He told us that he often gets comments about his characters and everyone wants to know if they’re based on real people.  Although he didn’t admit to any being exact replicas, he did say that he often uses personality traits of people he knows when creating his colorful characters.





His latest work, Bad Monkey, involves Medicare fraud, something that Florida faces in the real world. His main character, Andrew Yancy, is a Police Detective who has lost his badge and been demoted to Health Inspector (or roach counter as Carl puts it). Readers can look forward to reading this book to find out more about the severed arm Yancy has in his freezer, a voodoo doctor in the Bahamas, and of course, the bad monkey. According to Carl, monkeys often get a bad rap in movies and TV (think The Hangover). They can be ornery creatures and he decided he wanted to create a character with a back story. One whose actions could be explained by his past experiences. No, you didn’t skip a paragraph, we’re still talking about a monkey.

I can’t wait to start reading this book, I’m just dying to find out more about this monkey.

4 comments:

  1. Ok, now I need to know about the monkey. I hope this is vailable on audio too! Great post.

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  2. The monkey sounds like a lot of fun. Great post Kerry!

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  3. Is this book already out in the market..?

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    Replies
    1. Hi Josephine: Yes Bad Monkey is already out on the market.

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