Dual Review of Fever Beach and A Downhill Lie

I sat in a bright pink polo, part of the color palette that is also on the book jacket. I poured myself a lemonade and decided not to add rum. It was time to read Florida comedy. I decided to read the book jacket, which seemed to be a Romana clef. I’m not a resident of Florida, so I am not going to speculate who is who IRL. I toss the colorful, whimsical, Fear and Loathing in Florida style jacket aside. The actual book is red with gold trim. I flip it open. There is a long warning on the copyright page, similar to the one at the beginning of South Park. It specifically mocks white supremacists and their formal policies on self-gratification. Dark humor abounds. There is no bold or Italic text, if you didn’t read the copyright page (I’d imagine most people skip it) then you missed a great joke. The next page is the dedication: To the memory of Jimmy Buffett. Carl, you sonofabitch, you are Florida. My slow, deliberate read of Fever Beach was off and running.

The dark humor starts at an eleven and doesn’t stop. White supremacy, old people with money in Florida, and being poorly educated are all made fun of relentlessly in the first chapter. I have a hunch there is going to be murder and thinly veiled cultural erosion and political references galore. I’m here for it.

Right now I have a partially shaved chest and abdomen from my recent marathon abdominal surgery. I also have seven scars or various lengths and degrees of Frankenstein stitching. I probably should never go shirtless at a beach or pool in Florida, or anywhere else, ever again. Plus, I could lose a few pounds. The side effect of all of this is that I will likely not pick up a golf club all summer, maybe all year. Carl Hiaasen took time off from the game, too. Then he wrote A Downhill Lie. I have tons of golf instruction books, golf biographies, golf fitness, even golf philosophy books. My golf memoir section is pretty bare.

I was, despite it being a new release, somehow able to find a copy of Fever Beach for 20% off, and was able to stack a coupon, too. $35ish became twenty bucks out the door. I soon realized I may have gotten what I paid for. I couldn’t really take it back, or exchange it. The corner where the front cover met the spine tore, almost right away. There were also several pages where the ink was too thick, and others where it was too thin. I didn’t care, I read it anyway. Conversely, my $4 used copy of Downhill Lie is in amazing shape for the age and advertised condition.

Downhill Lie reminded me of the horror story that was my first foray into golf. 18. Walking. An old set of Wilsons I got as an eighth-grade graduation present. My buddy was a caddy at a private club and captain of a high school team. We were paired with two zero handicap women, whom I’m convinced were on the LPGA Tour. We went to Rainbow Springs in Mukwonago, WI. Rainbow Springs is now closed, permanently. It was meant to be a hotel and golf resort. The hotel never completed construction, and the golf course gradually got worse until it eventually ceased operations entirely. You’d never have guessed it was a failing public course in the boonies. The owner, or club pro, or whomever was in charge treated it like it was more exclusive than Augusta. To understate it, he HATED me with a passion, despite me being a paying customer who was just trying to enjoy his first round ever. He came around three times to scream at me in front of my buddy and the two ladies we were paired with. The third time I had set my bag in the rough adjacent to the 17th green. None of the clubs were touching the fringe or green, but they were kind of hovering there, with the trunk of the bag in the rough. He kicked me off the course and told me never to come back. I’ll never forget that for the rest of my life. The other three also called it a day and told him how wildly unprofessional he was. I was sixteen, and not in the wrong. Even decades later, I am not satisfied that his business failed. I’d love to tell him in person what a piece of shit he is. You, sir, are one of the worst people I have ever met. But I digress.

Carl shares an endless stream of anecdotes of spectacular golf failures. I love it. I once hit a Civil War Tortoise with a drive on a par 4. Carl had encounters with psychedelic toads and monkeys. He also once blasted a turtle with a drive. I think he’s got me beat. I took some time off from the game after I was shot in the head when one of my numbskull friends thought air soft guns and golf mixed. Carl took a hiatus when his dad died. He’s got me beat again. The one time I played in Florida my wife ditched me in a ditch with an alligator. We also had a cart and a woman in her 70s with a pushcart asked to play through. Carl has me beat on Florida golf anecdotes, too.

The further I got into Fever Beach, the more concerned I became that it would be too topical. It takes place in 2025 and can only take place in 2025. The book was released and very much exists in the present. I am concerned that the humor will age as poorly as 99% of Saturday Night Live. That said, it is still very enjoyable, and the characters are real. Future readers might not get all of the jokes and references, but that is okay.

A number of years ago I had to explain a joke. Specifically, while watching an old movie there was a joke about racism. Not a racist joke. A joke about racism. There is a huge difference. A racist joke is meant to be hurtful to people of the race being joked about and often has coarse language and stereotypes taken to extreme. A joke about racism is one where the subject is racists or racism. It is meant to be a social commentary about why racism is unacceptable and how dumb it is to be racist. Not conflating racist jokes and jokes about racism is really important to reading and understanding Fever Beach. There are tons of jokes about racism, as opposed to racist jokes. I could easily see how somebody who does not understand or is willfully ignorant of the difference would be wildly offended. I’m not really sure how one could include something like that in a trigger warning without being patronizing or giving too much of the plot away.

As I was reading Fever Beach- which is mostly about a conspiratorial plot gone awry- I thought about why such plots go awry. My answer, which Hiaasen does not explicitly state, is the Seven Deadly Sins. If you have enough conspirators, at least one, probably all of them, will give in to some sort of temptation or vice, and fuck it up for everyone involved. I would add an eight deadly sin, or reason why most conspiratorial types fail: being fucking dumb. Even if everyone keeps their vices in check, odds are sooner or later somebody is going to make a dumb mistake. The characters in the book are imperfect and overindulged in all sorts of things, but their downfall seemed to be the result of just doing dumb things and making unforced errors. You can lose a tennis match by double faulting. I know from personal experience.

Downhill Lie is partially diary, partially stream of consciousness, and full of the same caustic wit that I now suspect percolates through all of Hiaasen’s writing. I’m not going to write a full book like this, but the idea that my golf posts could be wittier and more Hiaasen-like appeals to me. Being nowhere near physically ready for golf, I am not sure how many anecdotes I will be able to share from my current adventures.

Back to Fever Beach, dedicated to the Memory of Jimmy Buffett, indeed. There are a ton of easter eggs snuck into the text that any Buffett fan would love. The subtle nods to the Coral Reefer Band are a nice touch. I love me some trop rock, and if they ever make a movie or series out of Fever Beach, I could see that being the soundtrack. Some of the place names and business names have been changed, but Hiassen captures the Floridian settings to a T. Whether it is Key West or the Pan Handle, the feel of Florida is authentic and essential to the book. Jimmy Buffett would be proud.

If you golf, or watch golf on TV, or enjoy golf movies, you gotta read Downhill Lie. It is a relatively short book, and you can set it down and pick it back up or just plow through it. Carl seems to much prefer solo golf, a choice I can’t blame him for, and in my younger days also did myself. So, between that, living in two different parts of the country, and the fact that we don’t actually know each other, I doubt we’ll ever play 19 together (see what I did there?).

Back to Fever Beach, there were no plot holes at all. None. Every minor character served a purpose, and justice was doled out evenly. It is good satire, too. The book ends in November of 2026. To the extent that it is futurism, I can see the world as Hiaasen predicts. I’d avoided his work until now. Now I am a fan. Frankly, the book should be higher on best seller lists. It is absolutely worth your time, especially if you are looking for a summer beach read or are planning a trip to Florida. I’m sure his other books are great, too.