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Basket Case by Carl Hiaasen Recommendation: ••
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Some Yuks Rock music fans will like Carl Hiaasen’s new novel, Basket Case, if they’re patient. True to form, Hiaasen creates South Florida characters that are totally believable. Obituary writer Jack Tagger becomes distracted with his obsession about his own death to investigate the mysterious death of rock singer Jimmy Stoma, lead of Jimmy and the Slut Puppies. Jack’s many relationships carry the action forward, and readers may actually laugh at a few points in the story. Here’s an excerpt from early in the novel, narrated by Jack: “I life alone in a decent fourth-floor apartment not far from the beach. Three different women have lived here with me, Anne being the most recent and by far the most patient. A snapshot of her in a yellow tank suit remains attached by a magnet to the refrigerator door. Inside the refrigerator is half a bucket of chicken wings, a six-pack of beer and a triangular slab of molding cheddar. Tonight the beer is all that interests me, and I’m on my third when somebody knocks. ‘Yo, Obituary Boy? You home?’ When Juan opens the door, I salute from the couch. He grabs a beer for himself and sits down in one of the matching faded armchairs. ‘The Marlins are playing,’ he says. ‘That’s a matter of opinion.’ ‘Where’s the TV?’ Juan motions to the vacant space in the center of the wall unit. ‘Don’t tell me you launched it off the balcony again.’ That sometime happens when I try to watch music videos. ‘It’s pathetic,’ I say to my friend. ‘I’m not proud of myself.’ ‘Who was it this time?’ ‘One of those “boy bands.” I don’t remember which.’ I roll the cool sweaty bottle across by forehead. Juan looks a little uptight. ‘You’re how old now – thirty four?’ I ask. ‘Not tonight, Jack.’ ‘You should be on top of the world, man. You’ve already hung in there longer than Keith Moon or John Belushi.’ I can’t help myself. Juan says, ‘Why do you do this?’ I put a Stones record on the stereo because you can’t go wrong with the Stones. Juan knows most of the songs, even the early stuff – he has fully acculturated himself since arriving in the 1981 exodus from the port of Mariel, Cuba. He was sixteen at the time, four years older than the sister who accompanied him on an old Key West lobster boat. They were with a group of thirty-seven refugees, among whom were a handful of vicious criminals that Castro yanked out of prison and shipped to Miami as a practical joke.” Often, as in the excerpt, Hiaasen introduces action, provides some dialogue, and then slows the action down. The pace of the narrative, or its rhythm, changes like tracks on a music CD. If that’s what you like, along with a few laughs, Basket Case is a perfect novel for you. For most of the rest of us, it’s a somewhat entertaining diversion with about as many yuks as a television sitcom. Steve Hopkins, February 1, 2002
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