In our latest roundup of book recommendations from Books & Books owner Mitchell Kaplan, Florida-centered stories dominate. With summer reading season in full swing, add these titles—from surreal psychodrama in the Everglades to an illuminating history of Elvis Presley and Colonel Tom Parker—to your list. All are available for purchase at Books & Books at the links below.
FICTION
Florida Palms: A Novel by Joe Pan
Set amid the underbelly of biker culture, “Florida Palms” has earned comparisons to the hit drama “Sons of Anarchy,” combining its mucky vibes with the coming-of-age pathos of classics like “The Outsiders.” It’s set on the Space Coast of Florida, where author Pan grew up, and follows a trio of friends—Eddy, Cueball and Jesse—during the recessionary summer of 2009. Out of high school but with no job prospects and an economy on the brink, the friends join a furniture-moving company run by Cueball’s ex-con biker father. The business, as the young lads discover, is not entirely on the level, and as their paychecks grow, so do their drug habits and involvement in Florida’s shadier corners, patrolled by methed-out zombies, hitmen, gangsters and con artists. “Florida Palms” is the debut novel from Pan, and it’s a New York Times Editor’s Choice. Pick up a signed copy at Books & Books.
Mayra: A Novel by Nicky Gonzalez
Mystery abounds in “Mayra,” another debut novel with a Florida focus. Gonzalez was raised in Hialeah, where the protagonists of her book, Ingrid and Mayra, also became best friends in childhood. They lost touch after high school, but a surprise phone call from Mayra, who had moved to the Northeast for college, opens the door to a reunion that’s close to Ingrid’s neck of the woods: a weekend getaway at a secluded, labyrinthine house in the Everglades. Struggling with unclear directions and without cell service, Ingrid enters the swamp, where Mayra’s transfixing beauty remains but little else feels grounded in reality. As lizards and alligators threaten to invade their idyll, and buried disagreements between the friends start to surface, time itself begins to feel illusory. A psychological horror story that eschews blood and guts for an unnerving, hallucinatory ambiance, “Mayra” has earned glowing comparisons to the great horror novelist Shirley Jackson.
CHILDREN’S BOOKS
Watch Out for Falling Iguanas by Edwidge Danticat
The vision of a stunned iguana plummeting from a tree during a cold front is a sight to behold for all South Floridians—a bizarre vision of climatic confusion that, given the invasive nature of the species, shouldn’t happen at all. But this is Florida, where beastly weirdness is baked into the DNA. This latest children’s picture book from acclaimed Haitian-American novelist Danticat follows Leila, a pint-sized Miamian navigating an unusually cold day in her tropical paradise, and whose walk to school includes an encounter with the titular phenomenon. Supplemented by color-saturated illustrations from Jamaican artist Rachel Moss, Danticat explores the scientific reasons why the cold-stunned reptiles fall from trees while painting a tender picture of intergenerational connection between Leila and her grandmother, whose knowledge of iguanas initially confounds our protagonist.
NONFICTION
The idea of Colonel Tom Parker as a Machiavellian monster who discovered, then manipulated, Elvis Presley to meet his own needs has been accepted as gospel for generations, up to and including the character dynamic established in Baz Luhrmann’s Oscar-winning biopic of 2022. But this latest, exhaustively researched tome from eminent music writer Peter Guralnick flips the script on this accepted wisdom. Drawing on a trove of never-been-seen correspondence from Parker, “The Colonel and the King” casts his role in Elvis’ ascent in new light—as an indefatigable champion, friend and Svengali who shaped his client’s untamed charisma into the most important rock star of his time. Guralnick, who previously penned a prize-winning two-volume biography of Presley, doesn’t ignore or deny Parker’s flaws and missteps, but he balances them with his new, more salutary reporting, in what should be essential reading for fans of the King and early rock ‘n’ roll.
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