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Distinct rewards make this book a gift
Book Review
By Derryll White
White, Randy Wayne (2002). Twelve Mile Limit
The Florida landscape and seascape has produced some notable environmentally-oriented mystery writers.
John D. MacDonald and Carl Hiaasen come immediately to mind, and now Randy Wayne White. White has several non-fiction fishing books to his credit, as well as about a dozen mystery novels. Many of these feature Doc Ford, an irascible biologist who supplies ocean specimens to the educational trade. Doc has strong roots in John Steinbeck’s friend Ed Ricketts, the model for Steinbeck’s “Doc” in ‘Cannery Row’ and ‘Sweet Thursday’.
Much like Hiaason, White reveals a strong affinity with the natural heart of Florida – the abundant ocean with its small inlets and offshore keys. Perhaps more than many states, Florida’s landscape continues under sustained, massive pressures of change by development. There is SO MUCH money to be made, and Florida’s dark economic soul is revealed time and again by Randy Wayne White.
White is an intelligent writer. His story is crammed with facts I did not know – about the ocean, the human body, the human condition. I found myself stopping frequently to consider things, always with a feeling of inner pleasure. “Oh, I didn’t know that. Interesting!” I said to myself. I know this style may not work for everyone but I really appreciate writers like this.
‘Twelve Mile Limit’ can be a depressing book and not for the faint of heart. White offers so much research on so many things that it can overwhelm the reader. He is adroit at capturing the base capabilities of human nature, the incredible ugly depths to which some men stoop in exploiting one another – and in particular in exploiting women. His saving grace is that he also celebrates that which is beautiful and amazing in the human spirit. The reader has to be prepared to work with this novel – both emotionally and intellectually. I did find there to be distinct rewards. One was the reminder to see and acknowledge the beauty in each and every individual woman I encounter.
This novel is not a quick read. There is much to absorb and much to think about. The fiction is grounded in real events, the meticulous research also tied to these events. Randy Wayne White leads the reader to surprising places; places where one has to ask – what would I do? I deeply enjoy these confirmations of self, as each time I learned something new about me. A true gift!
I am now on the hunt for more of Randy Wayne White’s ‘Doc Ford’ novels.
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Excerpts from the novel:
OTHER PERSPECTIVES – He added that there were five forms of soul travel: imaginative projection and trances were two that I still remembered. Something else he’d said also stuck with me: “The ashes of the average cremated person weigh nine pounds. The volume of the Earth’s moon is precisely the same as the volume of the Pacific Ocean.”
When I told him that I failed to see the connection, he nodded, very pleased with himself. “Exactly. Specialization is for insects.”
ENVIRONMENTAL ACTION – “…lately I’ve been meeting more and more so-called environmentalists who aren’t really pro-environment. What they are is anti-human. Anything that has to do with people they hate. They want to rope it all off, exclude everyone – except for themselves, of course. They’re enviro-elitists, not environmentalists.”
WHITE SLAVES – “The white slave trade is no joke. Drug smuggling gets all the press, but the flesh trade is a multibillion-dollar business. There’s big money in selling women in places like Brunei, North Africa. Hell, Amnesty International just issued a paper criticizing Israel because people’re kidnapping women from outside the country, smuggling them in, and selling them over there.”
THE UNKNOWN – There is nothing in life as unsettling or so painful as the unknown.
FUNERAL – It was an emotional affair. Some crying, some laughter, the ceremony – like all funeral ceremonies – underlining the fact that our lives are brief and that the impact an individual has on the life of another is never realized until the association has forever ended.
GROUP HYSTERIA – The psychology of group hysteria is well documented, its roots predictable – la participation mystique, Carl Jung termed it. Hysteria can begin when one member of a group is overwhelmed by a fear or an illusion so powerful that all rational thought processes cease, sparking brain activity in the frontal lobe and the primitive limbic system. All primates are deeply coded with the instinctive fight or flight response. When one group member displays that limbic response, other members react immediately and for good reason – survival is the only inviolable mandate of our species. Panic is contagious because it effectively speeds reaction time.
TRAFFICKING – The most striking thing about the vessel though was that it carried a human cargo. The deck and the wheelhouse were jammed with bodies…. There had to be a hundred people aboard. It reminded me of various refugee boats I’ve seen around the world: Vietnam, Cambodia, Mariel Harbor, Cuba. When people are sufficiently desperate, they will risk any means to escape to what they hope is a more tolerable existence. It makes them easy prey for flesh traders and profiteers.
ENVIRONMENTAL ACTION – The question of the manatee, however, and more and more so-called environmental causes – is: What is necessary maintenance? And what is symptomatic of very human and predictable attempts by government and nonprofit bureaucrats to expand their power.
The line has become so broad, so gray, that I sit way, way back and gather all the information I can before choosing sides in any environmental debate.
FACTOID – As members of the phylum Mollusca, an octopus is a mollusk, like a snail or clam, but that’s where all similarity ends. Octopi are the intellectual giants of their phylum. They have the most complex brain of all invertebrates, and they are a hell of a lot smarter than most animals that do have spines, and that includes some people I know.
AUTHORITY – SAR – search and rescue. The uniformed branches love acronyms. A language that outsiders can’t understand empowers and insulates.
HYPOTHERMIA – What people forget is that human beings are not built for the water. We are land creatures. Water removes heat from the body about twenty-five times faster than cold air, and most of that heat loss occurs through the head. Swimming, thrashing around, or struggling in water increases heat loss.
THE UNKNOWN – Dread of the abyss is communal among outdoor people. It is not the fear that unites us, but the potential that anything, absolutely anything, can happen. It creates a kind of congenial freemasonry – perhaps because feelings of dread, like nightmares, usually vanish when exposed to light.
BEAUTY – The world’s most beautiful women are always well into their thirties, forties, or fifties because only the experience of living and prevailing day after day can provide the necessary emotional texture and depth of understanding that Tomlinson’s definition of “beauty” requires.
– Derryll White once wrote books but now chooses to read and write about them. When not reading he writes history for the web at www.basininstitute.org.
Lotus Books is pleased to sponsor book reviews by Derryll White. If you are interested in a book that Derryll has reviewed you can shop online at http://lotusbooks.ca/, call us at 250-426-3415 or please visit us at 33 10th Ave. S. Cranbrook, and we would be happy to help you find a great read.
