Saturday, July 17, 2010
EXCLUSIVE - Elmore’s Chapter in Naked Came the Manatee
From Amazon:
Originally published as a serial novel in the Miami Herald’s Tropic magazine, Naked Came the Manatee resembles a literary game of telephone, with each writer contributing a chapter and passing it on to the next, who then makes the most of what he or she is given. The result is a novel with wildly fluctuating styles and more crazy plot curves than a daytime drama, but thanks to these 13 masters of the craft this roller coaster of a book is almost as much fun to read as it obviously was to write.—
Dave Barry starts the madness in Naked Came the Manatee, introducing a 102-year-old environmentalist named Coconut Grove and a manatee saddled with one of Barry’s favorite monikers, Booger. Carl Hiaasen closes down the party, and in between, 11 of Florida’s literati, including Elmore Leonard, John Dufresne, and Edna Buchanan, make twisted offerings to the affair: three severed heads, all bearing a remarkable resemblance to Fidel Castro; four murders; some sex; some espionage; even an appearance by Jimmy Carter and one by Castro himself.
Elmore’s chapter, The Odyssey, pays as little attention possible to this rambling compilation. His is the second to last chapter and a little gem of a story on its own. Brought to you here for the first time.
JOE SERENO CAUGHT the Odyssey night clerk as he was going off: prissy guy, had his lunch box under his arm.
“I saw it this morning on TV,” Joe said. “So there was a lot of excitement, huh? I thought the cops’d still be here, at least the crime scene guys. I guess they’ve all cleared out.
You hear the shots? You must’ve.”
“I was in the office,” the night guy said.
Joe wondered how this twink knew he was in the office at the exact time the shots were fired. What’d he think, it was soundproof in there? But the cops no doubt had asked him that, so Joe let it pass and said, “it was the two guys in one‑oh‑five, wasn’t it?”
Read the Odyssey.
