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Bottom of the pile
22
/100
I Index Overall Rating
Readers
4/100Critics
40/100Scholars
Author:
Kent Russell
Publisher:
Knopf Publishing Group
Date:
July 7, 2020
In the summer of 2016, Kent Russellâbroke, at loose ends, hungry for adventureâset off to walk across Florida. Mythic, superficial, soaked in contradictions, maligned by cultural elites, segregated from the South, and literally vanishing into the sea, Florida seemed to Russell to embody America's divided soul.
What The Reviewers Say
To try to understand this most incomprehensible state, we need varied and probing narratives, ones that change as Florida changes and are told by people who love the state too deeply to refrain from blistering criticism. Into this role steps the native South Floridian memoirist Kent Russell with his sharp, brilliant, mean, and exasperating hybrid book.
In his off-kilter adventure story/cultural history In the Land of Good Living, Kent Russell says he doesn't want to pander to those who filter their ideas of the Sunshine State through the absurdist lens of Florida Man memes. Yet he seldom seems to be more generous in his portrayal of his fellow Floridians.
... it is wildly uneven—with flashes of brilliance that are too often bogged down by half-baked analysis, clunky mega-words and, most disappointing of all, muddy writing.
...he fills in details about everything from oystering in Apalachicola Bay (and why you’re unlikely to get a real Apalachicola oyster anyplace else), to the shady origin story of Disney World.
