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Star Island

Name: Star Island
Author: Carl Hiaasen
ISBN: 9780446556132

by Carl Hiaasen

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Overview

Meet twenty-two-year-old Cherry Pye (née Cheryl Bunterman), a pop star since she was fourteen—and about to attempt a comeback from her latest drug-and-alcohol disaster.

Now meet Cherry again: in the person of her “undercover stunt double,” Ann DeLusia. Ann portrays Cherry whenever the singer is too “indisposed”—meaning wasted—to go out in public. And it is Ann-mistaken-for-Cherry who is kidnapped from a South Beach hotel by obsessed paparazzo Bang Abbott.

Now the challenge for Cherry’s handlers (über–stage mother; horndog record producer; nipped, tucked, and Botoxed twin publicists; weed whacker–wielding bodyguard) is to rescue Ann while keeping her existence a secret from Cherry’s public—and from Cherry herself.

The situation is more complicated than they know. Ann has had a bewitching encounter with Skink—the unhinged former governor of Florida living wild in a mangrove swamp—and now he’s heading for Miami to find her . . .

Will Bang Abbott achieve his fantasy of a lucrative private photo session with Cherry Pye? Will Cherry sober up in time to lip-synch her way through her concert tour? Will Skink track down Ann DeLusia before Cherry’s motley posse does?

All will be revealed in this hilarious spin on life in the celebrity fast lane.

About the Author, Carl Hiaasen

Carl Hiaasen was born and raised in Florida. He is the author of eleven previous novels, including the best-selling Nature Girl, Skinny Dip, Sick Puppy, and Lucky You, and three best-selling children’s books, Hoot, Flush, and Scat. His most recent work of nonfiction is The Downhill Lie: A Hacker’s Return to a Ruinous Sport. He also writes a weekly column for The Miami Herald.

Biography

When one thinks of the classics of pulp fiction, certain things -- gruff, amoral antiheroes, unflinching nihilism, and a certain melodramatic self-seriousness -- inevitably come to mind. However, the novels of Carl Hiaasen completely challenge these pulpy conventions. While the pulp of yesteryear seems forever chiseled in an almost quaint black and white world, Hiaasen's books vibrate with vivid color. They are veritable playgrounds for wild characters that flout clichés: a roadkill-eating ex-governor, a bouncer/assassin who takes care of business with a Weed Wacker, a failed alligator wrestler named Sammy Tigertail. Furthermore, Hiaasen infuses his absurdist stories with a powerful dose of social and political awareness, focusing on his home turf of South Florida with an unflinching keenness.

Hiaasen was born and raised in South Florida. During the 1970s, he got his start as a writer working for Cocoa Today as a public interest columnist. However, it was his gig as an investigative reporter for The Miami Herald that provided him with the fundamentals necessary for a career in fiction. "I'd always wanted to write books ever since I was a kid," Hiaasen told Barnes & Noble.com. "To me, the newspaper business was a way to learn about life and how things worked in the real world and how people spoke. You learn all the skills -- you learn to listen, you learn to take notes -- everything you use later as a novelist was valuable training in the newspaper world. But I always wanted to write novels."

Hiaasen made the transition from journalism to fiction in 1981 with the help of fellow reporter Bill Montalbano. Hiaasen and Montalbano drew upon all they had learned while covering the Miami beat in their debut novel Powder Burn, a sharp thriller about the legendary Miami cocaine trade, which the New York Times declared an "expertly plotted novel." The team followed up their debut with two more collaborative works before Hiaasen ventured out on his own with Tourist Season, an offbeat murder mystery that showcased the author's idiosyncratic sense of humor.

From then on, Hiaasen's sensibility has grown only more comically absurd and more socially pointed, with a particular emphasis on the environmental exploitation of his beloved home state. In addition to his irreverent and howlingly funny thrillers (Double Whammy, Sick Puppy, Nature Girl, etc), he has released collections of his newspaper columns (Kick Ass, Paradise Screwed) and penned children's books (Hoot, Flush). With his unique blend of comedy and righteousness ("I can't be funny without being angry."), the writer continues to view hallowed Florida institutions -- from tourism to real estate development -- with a decidedly jaundiced eye. As Kirkus Reviews has wryly observed, Hiassen depicts "...the Sunshine State as the weirdest place this side of Oz."

Good To Know

Perhaps in keeping with his South Floridian mindset, Hiaasen keeps snakes as housepets. He says on his web site, "They're clean and quiet. You give them rodents and they give you pure, unconditional indifference."

Hiaasen is also a songwriter: He's co-written two songs, "Seminole Bingo" and "Rottweiler Blues", with Warren Zevon for the album Mutineer. In turn, Zevon recorded a song based on the lyrics Hiaasen had written for a dead rock star character in Basket Case.

In Hiaasen's novel Nature Girl, he gets the opportunity to deal with a long-held fantasy. "I'd always fantasized about tracking down one of these telemarketing creeps and turning the tables -- phoning his house every night at dinner, the way they hassle everybody else," he explains on his web site. "In the novel, my heroine takes it a whole step farther. She actually tricks the guy into signing up for a bogus ‘ecotour' in Florida, and then proceeds to teach him some manners. Or tries."

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Editorials

From Barnes & Noble

Alcohol- and drug-abusing Cherry Pye has a secret. Actually this habitually misbehaving rock star has several, at this moment, one stands out: Ann DeLusia, her "life double," has been kidnapped by a crazed paparazzo who thinks that he has nabbed Cherry. Of course, Cherry and her over-controlling handlers are eager to free the hapless celebrity stand-in and protect Ms. Pye's embarrassing little secret. What follows is a hilarious novel that only Carl Hiaasen could have written. A sunny day at the beach; now in a paperback and a NOOKbook.

Marilyn Stasio

Whenever it seems as if he might be running out of oxen to gore, Carl Hiaasen comes up with fresh victims for his killing wit…Trying to follow the plot, which involves a supporting cast of crooked politicians and predatory developers, is a little like walking a puppy. But the outlandish events soar on the exuberance of Hiaasen's manic style, a canny blend of lunatic farce and savage satire.
—The New York Times Book Review

Janet Maslin

Mr. Hiaasen can still take any aspect of pop culture and find a laugh in it.
—The New York Times

Publishers Weekly

The career of singer Cheryl Bunterman (aka Cherry Pye), who debuted with Jailbait Records at age 15, is foundering due to her lack of talent and indiscriminate appetite for drugs, booze, and sex in this outrageous, offbeat novel from Hiaasen (Nature Girl). Among those struggling to keep Cherry's career afloat are her mother, Janet Bunterman; producer Maury Lykes; and "undercover stunt double" Ann DeLusia, who will, say, mislead the press into thinking Cherry is out and about when she's really in rehab. Hiaasen has easy targets in misbehaving celebrity sightings, tabloid stalkings, and spin control experts, and he makes the most of them. Crooked real estate developer Jackie Sebago and paparazzo Bang Abbott, who plans to hitch his wagon to Cherry's star, add to the madcap fun. Mayhem follows after Bang kidnaps Ann instead of Cherry by mistake, and ex-Florida governor and eco-vigilante Clinton "Skink" Tyree, who was smitten with Ann after a chance encounter, rushes to her rescue. The torrent of pop culture barbs are bound to please Hiaasen's ardent fans. 500,000 first printing; 12-city author tour. (Aug.)

From the Publisher

“Carl Hiaasen [is] Florida’s most entertainingly indignant social critic . . . He presents us with Cherry Pye, a 22-year-old pop star whose every display of narcissistic excess will send a frisson of horrified delight up your spine . . . The outlandish events soar on the exuberance of Hiaasen’s manic style, a canny blend of lunatic farce and savage satire.”
—New York Times Book Review

“Does anyone remember what we did for fun before novelist Carl Hiaasen began turning out his satirical comedies one after another after another? . . . Star Island is a concoction worth the time of any reader who wants quality entertainment.”
—San Francisco Chronicle

“Hiaasen reclaims his groove in Star Island, a wicked, fizzy sendup of American celebrity culture . . . A very funny book about life in the fast lane.”
—Boston Globe

“Fans of Carl Hiaasen will feel right at home when they plunge into Star Island. There’s the familiar collection of deliciously tawdry characters, each angling for a piece of the action in Florida . . . And there’s the fast-moving plot, and the writing that makes you laugh out loud . . . Hiaasen has turned out another gem. Readers of his previous novels can settle in for more wacky fun in the Florida sun.”
—Associated Press

“A wild and fun Sunshine State ride.”
—New York Post

“Hiaasen is at his gleeful best skewering the morally bankrupt. He has plenty to poke fun at here, from a reprehensible real-estate developer with an excruciating groin injury to twin publicists Botoxed within an inch of their lives. This is classic Hiaasen—demented, hilarious, and utterly over the top.”
—Booklist (starred)

“An outrageous, offbeat novel . . . The torrent of pop culture barbs are bound to please Hiaasen’s ardent fans.”
—Publishers Weekly

Library Journal

At age 22, Cherry Pye is a fading pop star whose handlers, manager, and publicity gurus are trying frantically to orchestrate a comeback—with little help from Cherry—while keeping her fragile emotional state a closely guarded secret. The plan seems to be working until Cherry overdoses—again—and in the resulting melee, one of the ever-present paparazzi kidnaps Ann DeLusia, Cherry's stunt double, thinking he has the real star. A master at character creation, Hiaasen (Nature Girl) has amassed as weird a cast as ever graced Miami Beach, including a one-armed bodyguard with a unique prosthesis, an obsessed paparazzo whose unwashed state and obsession are an affront to all but Cherry, fraternal twins who have spent thousands of dollars to look identical, and Skink, the reclusive former governor of Florida, who lives in the wilderness of the Florida Keys and uses every ploy at his command to thwart development of the state's natural lands.Verdict This rollicking tour de force lampoons south Florida's celebrity subculture while including the obligatory environmental subplot for which Hiaasen is known. Highly recommended. [A 500,000-copy first printing; 12-city tour.]—Thomas L. Kilpatrick, formerly with Southern Illinois Univ., Carbondale