Book Review: 'Naked Came the Manatee'
© 1998 Fawcett/Ballantine Books In 1996, Tom Shroder, the editor of The Miami Herald' s defunct Sunday magazine Tropic, came up with a unique concept - a revival of the "serial" novel form with a decidedly loopy South Florida twist. What if, Shroder mused, someone rounded up thirteen Miami-area writers and asked them to build a novel, chapter by chapter, in thirteen consecutive issues of Tropic ? It had to be set in the region, and writers had to be able to write quickly in order to meet the strict deadlines of the magazine. A crazy idea, yes, but Shroder's challenge was accepted by a "baker's dozen" of the Gold Coast's best and more prominent writers, including humor columnist Dave Barry, ex- Herald crime beat reporter Edna Buchanan, columnist-novelist Carl Hiaasen, and their colleague Tanarive Due. The Miami Herald veterans were joined by more area literary figures, of whom Les Standiford. Elmore Leonard, Vicki Hendricks, and Paul Levine are ...