Once upon a time, 20 or so journalists at the Long Island newspaper Newsday, posed as a single writer named Penelope Ashe and wrote a really bad sex novel called Naked Came the Stranger.In 1997, Dave Barry wrote the first chapter of Naked Came the Manatee and passed it to the right, in the tradition of that party game called Telephone. He thought he'd made up enough characters for all of the South Florida writers involved in the project. And like the first person in the Telephone circle, he lost control as soon as it left his mouth. Er, hands. You see, the next person in line was Les Standiford (Presidential Deal), who brought in his previously owned character, John Deal. But what could he do, following a first chapter about a manatee named Booger who lives in Biscayne Bay?Standiford gave the story to Paul Levine (Flesh & Bones), who took the same liberty and introduced his attorney character Jake Lassiter to the mix.In an interview* with The Miami Herald's Fred Tasker, Dave Barry said, "One scary trend was that Les Standiford started introducing his character, and Paul Levine his character. I thought, 'Boy, there's going to be an awful lot of characters in this book.' I was glad when people started killing them."Edna Buchanan (Act of Betrayal) picked it up from there, reviving her crime reporter Britt Montero from a previous novel and passed the project to James W. Hall (Tropical Freeze), whose chapter was titled "The Old Woman and the Sea." Another new character.Next, the story went to Carolina Hospital (A Century of Cuban Writers in Florida), who added a touch of the exotic and soon dumped it in the lap of Evelyn Mayerson (Miami).So Mayerson worked with it and later gave it to Tananarive Due (The Between), who gave it to Brian Antoni (Paradise Overdose), who gave it to Vicki Hendricks (Iguana Love), who gave it to John Dufresne (Love Warps the Mind a Little). Dufresne wrote from inside Booger's head for a little soliloquy. Ah.Then the story was picked up by Elmore Leonard (Get Shorty), and it finally shuffled off to Carl Hiaasen (Lucky You). Lucky him.The Miami Herald's Tropic Magazine published a new chapter every week for 13 weeks. Think about that. You get this piece of a book and have one week to make your own addition. There was no preconceived plot; that the plot isn't brilliant is no surprise. I'm impressed with the thing even being produced at all. And with Carl Hiaasen getting stuck tying up all of the loose ends in the final chapter... well, I thought he did a fine job. "The plot is disjointed," one reader whines. "It's full of clichés," another one sighs. So? It's even absurd, I'd agree. Hey, it's a comic thriller. You say it's hard to keep track of the characters? Yup. It is. And if you're looking for character development, sorry. There are too many of 'em. But to say reading it is a waste of time? That it's a rotten book? Absolutely not.This is 13 writers playing, folks, not the next War and Peace. In that same interview, Elmore Leonard said, "I hope everyone gets this - that it's not a real novel. That cheers me up. If it were reviewed as a real novel, I think they'd find it somewhat inconsistent." Yeah, what he said.The beauty of the not-a-real-novel is that, after 13 chapters, you can tell what authors to pick up on your next trip to the bookstore. I didn't care for all of them, but Naked Came the Manatee was my first exposure to Hiaasen and now I'm working my way through his entire collection.If nothing else, soothe yourself knowing that the $205,000 Putnam Books put up for the novel was donated by the authors to charities, not pocketed and carried gleefully to the bank.So what's this book about, you ask?Well.... Coconut Grove, Florida, is the setting. You immediately meet a manatee named Booger and two bungling thieves who have a boat wreck because they run over the hapless sea cow. They lose their mysterious cargo in Booger's bay. Then you meet an old lady who makes a habit of swimming with Booger - naked. She finds part of the crate's contents. A near-drowned man, who is rescued by the manatee, discovers the rest. Fidel Castro has apparently lost his head - twice - in Biscayne Bay. The lady who owns a dive shop is the old lady's granddaughter, and her husband Phil... wait, this is already getting complicated. Just read the book.
Not as funny as I'd hoped it would be. In 1995 and 1996, a team of South Florida's best writers collaborated on a wacky mystery story that was published a chapter at a time by the Miami Herald's "Tropic" magazine (RIP). The first chapter, setting up the storyline, was by Dave Barry, and featured a manatee named (of course) Booger. Other writers had to then pick up the story and run with it. Les Standiford tossed in his series hero, John Deal, and then Paul Levine had his attorney hero Jake Lassiter representing Deal in a court case and trying to flirt with Edna Buchanan's reporter hero Britt Montero. Tanarive Due, Vicki Hendricks and others then had to try to make sense of what came before and add to it. One writer even went into the mind of Booger -- and of Jimmy Carter, who gets involved somehow as well. The final chapter, wrapping everything up, is by Carl Hiaasen.Because of how it was written, the storyline jumps around a lot as the characters pursue what they think is the frozen head of Fidel Castro, and then find out there's a second head out there as well. I'm sure this was all great fun while reading it in the Tropic installments, but trying to read it all together as a book exposes its flaws. (And don't get me started on what it gets wrong about manatees.)Still, the book has its pleasures, particularly its depiction of the insanity of life in South Florida in the mid-1990s. The chapter Elmore Leonard wrote, focusing on a couple of crime-scene clean-up experts explaining how they do their work, is a queasy joy. And kudos to Hiaasen for writing a scene in which the real Fidel Castro, going incognito in Miami, gets mugged by a Marielito.
What do You think about Naked Came The Manatee (1998)?
Like most such serially written books, Naked Came the Manatee starts out strong, but as it progresses, each previous writer is more and more likely to write the next one into a corner. In some such stories, the ending is a foregone conclusion, so the writers needn't struggle too much to assure that the assassination is foiled, the lovers are united, etc., but something that starts with an open ending, like this book, paradoxically creates more troubles for writers and readers. For example, Carl Hiassen, the final writer, finishes more by undoing, sometimes cleverly, sometimes gracelessly, many of the previous complications and even characterizations. That said, all the writers know and love/hate/mostly love southern Florida and capture its crazy and corrupt essence. The manatee is an endearing protagonist and the story is full of McGuffins of all kinds. Overall, though, the individual writers are more satisfying as individuals, and this book more as a curiosity than a story.
—Ann Feeney
First time reading a novel written by 13 different authors. My thoughts:1. Worth a read for those of us living in South Fla. or who are familiar with life here. Pretty much makes fun of everything here, mainly assoc. with Miami & Coconut Grove.2. Very funny chapter that makes fun of the typical South Beach life style and the trendy clubs...and tacky private dinner party...a club called "Hell" with an aquarium dance floor filled with sharks. Note: Hiaasen later will write a book called "Star Island" which also has a scene with a similar trendy club.3. Scene with bridge going up- car just makes it. There are SOOOOOO many of those bridges all over South Florida!!!! can 100% relate to that being in the book.4. Scene towards end- almost an entire chapter in detail about a very Tarantino-esque murder scene clean up. Left me wondering if grey matter- pieces of brain- look like wax when splattered about? I pictured scenes from the Sopranos. although a later chapter mentions who the victims were- it didn't really make sense....5. I was able to keep track of maybe 99% of the many many many characters. 6. One of the authors hated the Jake Lassiter character to the point of endless ridicule... seemed weird... suave lawyer before now becomes a beer drinking buffoon after ass?7. The main PLOT: lets see... multiple (two?) fake heads of castro... one goal was for the CIA to help Castro fake his own death, and after castro has a bad experience in Miami getting mugged on the beach, he ditches the plan going back to cuba. meanwhile a castro overthrower wanna be Cuban wants to thinks the head really is castro, so he can then become Pres. of cuba, because Castro is proven dead. he winds up jumping into the bay and being hit by a boat and drowning. It was unclear who the phil/hector worked for? aside from them delivering the head, not sure how the mafia guy fit in... The US Govt./CIA was working with Fidel and his people to fake Fidel's death, and the 2 characters hector and Weston were part of this plot yet hector was also in with the reyes guy and then for some reason Weston/hector were killed off upon Fidel's command.? and odd the us govt. would ever help fidel and carter is mentioned but not sure what he had to do with all of this. in the end it seemed fidel had the last laugh against his wanna be overthrower, going back to cuba like nothing had happened.8. I liked the manatee character...and yes the chapter where he gets all high browy is awful. but the scene where he swims with marion was really nice. I have to hope maybe they may do that. my one encounter with manatees in the ocean, they swam off sooo fast, just as fast as a boat can go. I liked that the manatee got revenge by scraping the boat, even though as Hiaasen chastises later, a manatee would never do that IRL, but its fiction so why not?9. Time references: you could tell the time this was written by its references to the OJ trial which was referenced at least twice in the book, its lack of mention of facebook or other social media, smartphones, etc. 10. I don't believe the scene where Castro is mugged on the beach...while funny to think of that happening, its completely unrealistic. oh well. I'm sure castro isn't that clueless or non street smart nor would he be without bodyguards ever. it would have made more sense, and more true to Miami/south beach if he had left the expensive watch unattended on the beach while swimming and then it was stolen- THAT is what happens to anything left unattended just about anywhere in south fla. even in Boca Raton.11. Chapter where they go to Jake Lassiter's house- a coral home with no AC? No way for that character...maybe a hipster surfer dude or a bunch of surfer dudes...not a South Fla. lawyer.
—Robin Berman
You'd think that a slew of seasoned writers could put together a better story than this, wouldn't you? It honestly read like they were more caught up in playing a game of trying to trip each other up while amusing themselves in the process than they were with creating a properly flowing novel. If you read it from that perspective, a bunch of (otherwise) great authors coming together to amuse themselves and playing jokes on each other by torturing certain characters and at one point mutilating another character's pet (like har-har, I just killed your bunny, so what do you think about that? - I could almost imagine the writer saying/thinking) with quite literally the intent of tripping up the next author in line (Oh yeah? What are you going to do with this? Haha! Hardy-har-har) then you may enjoy it. But if you are looking for a story with substance and characters that DO NOT change abruptly without warning or explanation then I strongly recommend you look elsewhere.
—Margaret
