Gale - A Study Guide for Carl Hiassens Flush

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Carl Hiaasen

2005

Flush, published in 2005, is Carl Hiaasen's second novel aimed at a young adult audience and, like his first, Hoot, has an environmental theme. The winner of the 2006 Green Earth Award in the young adult category and the 2006 Agatha Award for best children/young adult fiction book, Flush follows the story of Noah Underwood and his family as he helps prove that a casino boat operator is illegally dumping sewage into the Florida Keys. Throughout the text, Hiaasen emphasizes the beauty and glory of nature, while underscoring the ability of people, including children, to make a difference in preserving it.

Hiaasen is a native of south Florida and an outspoken newspaper columnist for the Miami Herald. In his popular columns as well as his many novels, he speaks out against the development and transformation of the land in his beloved home state, often with a sense of humor and a touch of satire. Like his adult novels, Flush does not shy away from the darker side of the issues as well. He describes in detail how sewage is dumped into water and its effect on the nearby environment. Hiaasen also includes memorable characters, usually humorously named, like the lying bully Bull and the dirty Lice Peeking.

While Flush was not the popular smash hit that Hoot was when it was published several years earlier, the young adult novel was well liked by critics and readers. Hiaasen was lauded for his ability to weave environmental themes relatively seamlessly into the text. Praising the book in the New York Times, Sam Swope wrote,

maybe he's just found a way to channel his anger and at the same time inspire some youngster to action, for he sneaks in an important message into this book that with any luck the censors won't notice: sometimes breaking the law is the right thing to do.

Carl Hiaasen was born in Plantation, Florida, on March 12, 1953, and raised in southern Florida with his three younger siblings. Throughout his childhood, he played near swamps, scrubland, and lagoons. His love of nature was tempered by seeing developers turn the environmentally sensitive land into houses, resorts, and malls. His father, Odel, was a lawyer who often represented such developers, while his mother, Patricia, was a teacher. Her influence led Hiaasen to grow up loving reading and the written word.

At the age of six, Hiaasen asked his parents for a typewriter, and the youngster soon was intent on a career in journalism. Early on, he focused on writing sports stories, but as he grew older, he wrote essays on why he was right in arguments with his parents. By the time he was in high school, he had his own satirical newspaper, More Trash. After marrying his high school sweetheart, Hiaasen studied at Emory College and the University of Florida, where he earned his journalism degree in 1974.

After two years as a reporter at Cocoa Today, Hiaasen landed a job with the Miami Herald. He was soon working as an investigative journalist. While he did well at the job, Hiaasen also wanted to explore longer, fictional pieces, a hunger that dated back to his young adult years. To that end, Hiaasen and another reporter, William Montalbano, wrote a novel together, the thriller Powder Burn (1981). The pair wrote three more thrillers together before Montalbano went on assignment to China.

Hiaasen soon moved on to a different job at the Miami Herald: columnist. Beginning in 1985, he took on tough issues like corruption, bureaucracy, and drugs. Hiaasen did not abandon fiction, however. In 1986, he published his first solo novel, the mystery Tourist Season. Hiaasen continued to regularly publish thrillers, mystery novels, and dramas primarily based on life in south Florida. One of these books was Strip Tease (1993), which was later made into a film starring Demi Moore.

After divorcing his first wife and moving to the Florida Keys in 1996, Hiaasen married Fenia Clizer. He continued to write columns for the Herald, though his output decreased to about one per week. Hiaasen focused much of his time on his fiction, including Skinny Dip (2004), an adult novel thtat looks at the poisoning of the swamps of south Florida.

In 2002, Hiaasen took on a new challenge as a fiction author and published his first young adult novel, Hoot. The popular Newbery Honor-winning book focuses on a group of teens who work to prevent a bulldozer from destroying land where baby burrowing owls live. While Hiaasen kept a humorous, satiric tone in his books for young adults, including Flush (2005), he toned down the drama found in his novels for adults. As of 2008, Hiaasen continues to live in the Florida Keys, writing his novels and columns while enjoying the nature that surrounds him.