Does it matter where you read a book? A “beach read†on a city bus? A retelling of “The Iliad†on a Southwest flight? The story of 9-11 lakeside in Quebec?
A good read, by definition, transports. But sometimes it’s just plain fun to read a book where it’s set. That’s why I’ve read each and every crazy, hilarious, weird and smartly told Carl Hiaasen novel in Florida, where they unfold.
Heading back to Florida this Christmas I had no Hiaasen to bring. (If you’ve never had the pleasure of reading him, try any. “Stormy Weather,†“Skin Tight†and “Lucky You†are among my favorites.)
What I packed instead was a thick book I hoped would be just as good and maybe even better than a Hiaasen, since they’re so scarce: a new Tom Wolfe, “Back to Blood.†It’s set in Miami, and while I was north of there, in posh Gulfstream, I read Wolfe’s wicked and wise satire under the same sun, beside the same surf.
“Back to Blood†is the marvelous stew that is Miami: WASP journalists, an African-American police chief, a Haitian professor and his beautiful daughter, Cubans, Cubans, Cubans, a Russian oligarch. An ace art forger who works out of his apartment in his retirement community. Also a doctor who treats men addicted to porn.
The story begins with Nestor Camacho, a Miami cop sent up a yacht’s mast to bring down a man fleeing Cuba. Camacho does as told — heroically, hand over hand, captured on cell phones and broadcast. He’s a hero, right? Not in Hialeah, where his family, neighbors, even strangers shun him: bringing the man down the mast and into police custody before he reached land cost the man his freedom.
An outcast, Camacho hopes to reunite with his outrageously beautiful girlfriend, Magdalena. She dumps him for the porn doctor. Can things get any worse? Of course they can. During a crack-house raid, Camacho beats and taunts an African-American drug dealer; that sorry event is recorded and promptly posted on You-Tube.
Camacho loses his badge and his gun.
There’s more and more and more, of course. (This is Wolfe!) What I love about this read is its layers — truly, this is a cast of thousands — and its immediacy. You are there: you are on that mast, outside the forger’s apartment, in the Haitian professor’s head.
Wolfe, 81, tells a big story, masterfully, then ties it up neatly, with a just and perfect ending.
Bravo.
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