2008 Elkin Isaac Speaker - Carl Hiaasen, April 24th

The Elkin Isaac Research Symposium Committee is pleased to announce that Carl Hiaasen, Miami Herald columnist and three-time Pulitzer prize nominee, will be this year's keynote speaker. Hiaasen's columns have long been scathing indictments of the lack of control over the development and management of the south Florida environment and its limited resources and that cynicism is even more unbridled in his novels.

As a prelude to requesting support from Academic Affairs, we are seeking expressions of interest for a coterie developed around Carl Hiaasen's earliest novel, "Tourist Season." We will provide a "course pack" of selected columns so that participants are more able to understand how his columns and satire influence his works of fiction. Hiaasen will offer the keynote address at the Elkin Isaac Research Symposium in April and we are working to include a discussion of this book with him and coterie participants, as well as students, as a part of his visit.

Several reviews follow:

"A vacationing Shriner disappears, the only clue to his demise --- his fez awash on a Miami beach. The director of the Chamber of Commerce dies with a toy rubber alligator in his throat. It's the height of South Florida's tourist season and the Orange Bowl is nigh. The Chamber of Commerce is panicked as more tourists vanish. Will Brian Keyes, former reporter turned PI, be able to stop the eco-terrorist carnage by crocodile? We are introduced to Hiaasen's singularly twisted and rollicking sense of humor in this, the first of Hiaasen's South Florida fiendishly funny thrillers." --- Reviewed by Roz Shea © Copyright 1996-2008, Bookreporter.com. All rights reserved.

"Wonderful...lively... fun...a remarkable example of what talented writers are doing these days with the mystery novel". - Tony Hillerman, The New York Times Book Review

"A dark, funny book full of irony and spice. I loved it!"-- Robert B. Parker

Hiaasen's website: http://www.carlhiaasen.com/