Carl Hiaasen's STRIP TEASE is one of my favorite novels ever...part crime story, part political thriller, and most importantly part pure, shameless fun! It's a romp of epic proportions featuring characters big and small, heroic and villainous or just plain insane, with a comic edge that would be called satirical if it didn't feel so bloody honest and real. It's a story as absurd as real life, and brother, only in a world like ours could a crazy adventure like this happen where a heroic stripper faces long odds against perverts and even worse just to save her daughter!Erin Grant, a former file clerk for the FBI, is working as a stripper to pay her legal fees during a bitter, emotional custody battle to win back her daughter, Angela. Her ex and bitter enemy in that fight is Darrell, a no-account, scumbag hophead whose specialty is stealing wheelchairs. Seriously. (Stranger cases have happened in real life!) Erin works at a dive of a stripper bar in Florida called the Eager Beaver and it's more because of her singular, sensual talents as a dancer than any -- ahem, overwhelming charms she's earning her money. She works with an eclectic sorority of dancers and has a guardian in the form of the bar's frightening hulk of a bouncer, Shad, who serve as her unconventional support system. By the way, Shad is looking for a way to improve his own lot in life, which is to say coming up with a great scam to make a small fortune, legal or not.So you'd figure Erin has enough problems! All it takes is a complete lack of self-control on the part of perverted Congressman David Dilbeck (D-FL) to turn a night of naughty but nice fun into a near-tragedy when Dilbeck almost kills a poor guy out of lust for Erin. The beautiful dancer who wants nothing more than to get her daughter back quickly finds herself mired up to her lovely hips in a potential political scandal of thermonuclear proportions that will endanger both Big Government and Big Sugar, and before it's all over, bodies will start turning up! Fortunately, Erin will get some help from Al Garcia, a police detective who ran across one of those bodies in a really strange way...!And for the record, I haven't and never will see the film version with Demi Moore, Burt Reynolds and Ving Rhames I've heard only lousy things about. (I have seen the commercials, and Ving makes a good Shad. The bouncer's classic line, "Do I look like I follow politics?", was probably one of the few things the movie got right!) Hollywood's gotten it wrong before trying to make a great book into a great movie, of course. STRIP TEASE is at its best in written form, especially in the way the author presents it. Hiassen's style combines lightning pace with over-the-top characters and a genuine comic touch...if you don't at least crack a smile reading this, then something's wrong with you! It borders on satire in the sense that it presents very real-life evils -- corrupt politicians and the sugar barons who own them down in Florida, which has caused everything from the modern day slavery of workers to the destruction of the environment. When the story gets serious, though, it goes even further over the top...but it never strikes a false note once, and it doesn't fail to satisfy!STRIP TEASE has a free-wheeling way of playing with our expectations, too. Erin Grant is usually the kind of character who needs to be saved by the male lead in a story like this...not here! Erin may have a heart of gold, but she's also a fighter. When things go from bad to worse, especially when she finds herself fending off both her ex Darnell and the randy 'Davey' Dilbeck at turns...no spoilers, but let's just say Erin gets creative! And it doesn't hurt to have support from truly unique characters like Shad and the story's straight man in the face of the madness, Al Garcia. I'm not even going to go other characters you have to meet for yourself like Mister Peepers, a political fixer with the nickname 'Moldy', and a certain luckless lawyer who tries to help Shad with his scamming. Hiassen has been compared deservedly to the late, great Elmore Leonard, and I'd put this novel up there with classics like Leonard's GET SHORTY, which had a similar spirit. Please just go out and read STRIP TEASE...at the very least, you'll never look at Vaseline the same way again!
I've listened to somewhere between four and five dozen audiobooks (used to be an Audible subscriber) and the voice acting/narration on this book is definitely in my top three, if not in the top spot itself. Although the narrator slipped a bit in the last chapter with Garcia sounding a bit like Chad, it was otherwise an amazing performance. The narrator did something like 15 different, distinct voices. It's not always necessary and it's distracting if done poorly, but for this book it really brought something special. I've been a huge opponent of those who have used ebook DRM to prevent book readers from autoreading books to the sight-impaired. This book is a perfect example of why they shouldn't prevent sight-impaired people from having a machine read a book. That's just someone reading a book. It's nothing special. But a performance, like in this recording of Striptease, that's something worth paying for and something MANY years away when it comes to machine reading.As for the substance of this book, I can see why Hiaasen has such a following. The satire and wit was sharp and biting. I almost fell out of bed with the hilarity of the final scene with Chad in the last chapter (not the Epilogue). I shouldn't feel bad spoiling a book that's 20 years old (and made into a cult classic movie - which I haven't seen), but I had such a great time with this book, that I'd like to not be the one to spoil it. Here's what's great about this book: all the characters are real Characters. I never found myself bored with any of them. The political satire is top notch and hasn't changed in the past 20 years. The social commentary is a lot of fun. The book also does something that society and pop culture haven been good at - portraying the dancers at the strip club as human beings. It really shouldn't matter WHY someone chooses to do something that isn't hurting anyone, but the main character certainly has a reason that goes along with something the majority of society would find acceptable. The lawsuit satires are definitely of the 90s. I mean, we're still with them (Ancient Greeks and Romans were incredibly litigious as well - it's a human trait, I think). But I remember that there was a real lawsuit zeitgeist in the 90s and this book taps into that in the most hilarious way. Finally, the divorce plotline is a great satire in the spectacular ways the system can fail us. My only two complaints with the book were that, one, Daryl's luck makes him second only to horror movie villains in his ability to terrorize. Even in a book full of outlandish ideas it can reach ridiculous heights at times that took me out of the story. Second, while the book was overall paced very well, it does take some tangents where it's pretty obvious Hiaasen is messing with you because he just left a plot point dangling. At times I found myself wondering how I had so much more story left. Overall, I STRONGLY recommend this reading of the book - Goodreads says cassette, I think, but I got this as MP3s from a Humble Bundle. I also really recommend this book (even if you have to read it to yourself) whether or not you've seen the movie. I enjoyed it a lot without having seen the movie. Now I'm curious to see if the characters match what I saw in my head.
What do You think about Strip Tease (2005)?
Strip Tease is the book that the Demi Moore and Burt Reynolds movie of the same name is based on. This author is terrific with his sense of humor and his quick wit. He has come up with another group of crazy characters. Erin the beautiful stripper, Shad the educated conniving bouncer, Al Garcia the tough minded detective, Congressman Dilbeck the drunken womanizer, Moldy the political fixer and Darrell- Erins felonious ex husband. What a terrific story. How the author even came up with it is beyond me. The story starts with a bachelor party at the Eager Beaver. At the end of the night a drunken groom hugs Erin up on stage and a disguised Congressman jumps up and beats him with a champagne bottle putting him in the hospital and putting off the grooms wedding. The Congressman is recognized by a patron and also had his picture taken while giving the beating up on the stage. Dilbeck is the head of the panel that oversees the sugar subsidies in Congress. This is where Moldy gets called in as Erin has a fan that thinks he can help her with the judge in her custody case. Erins daughter was given to her ex Darrell the wheelchair stealing felon. Moldy has a hard time controlling Dilbeck even with the help of Erb Crandall a security man assigned to the Congressman. An excellent read. A lesson in irony and also the belief that good things come to those who wait. Garcia is the perfect example of this as he pushes his way through this story.
—Kevin Allmaras
Oh holy crap on a stick. This has an average rating of 3.5 !?! Is that cause it fits in your purse? Is that cause you can read it drunk, upside down, with the lights out and still not miss a trick? (Yes, fine, take the pun - I don't care). The book could have worse, but is that any methodology for handing out stars? Oh god. And the acknowledgment actually acknowledges the people who brought the practice of wrestling half-naked strippers in creamed corn to his attention. The fact that this book has a rating of 3.5 makes me want to gouge my eyes out and rely on listening to indie films for entertainment. But I won't because there are a lot of really good books yet to read (and a lot of indie films suck too). And if I did then my ex would be totally justified in calling me overly-dramatic. I just wouldn't recommend this to my dog... if I had one.
—Cwides
This book is hilarious!The audiobook narration is fantastic as well. I felt each character had his or her unique voice. I particularly enjoyed listening to Dillbeck's lines. The narrator does a superb job at representing his personality. I told someone this book would make a good movie. Well, I didn't get the memo, and apparently, it happened back in 1996 with Demi Moore as Erin Grant. Well, I never watched the movie because I don't really care about her acting. Maybe I'll watch it now. The more Hiaasen's books I read, the more I like him. He's a funny guy in a very twisted way.
—Michelle Only Wants to Read
