Authors Talk
The Cuban Sandwich: A History In Layers. Andrew T. Huse, Barbara C. Cruz, and Jeff Houck. University Press of Florida, 2022. 180 pages.
Every state has a couple of foods that Americans associate with that state. In Florida, it's most likely key lime pie and the Cuban sandwich. Personally, I think smoked mullet is a much bigger and better contribution to food than those two combined, but they are the quintessential Florida foods in the minds of most Americans.
The Cuban sandwich has a long history of popularity, but both its composition and its origin have been clouded by conflicting claims and stories. Tampa, Miami, and Key West all claim to be the home of the sandwich, which typically consists of some combination of pork (ham, roast pork, pulled pork), Swiss cheese, mustard, and pickles on Cuban bread. Tampans add salami, a heresy according to other aficionados. While the origin story has been researched before, authors Huse, Cruz, and Houck felt that there was more to the story and that it hadn't been fully told. After extensive research, and I'm sure countless Cubans, they've created this fantastic history and a great read. I have always believed that food is an excellent entry point when studying history, and this book delivers. Their research reveals that Cuba was known for its sandwiches even before the Spanish-American War, even before the word sandwich reached Cuba, and they were often considered treats for upper class Cubans out on Sunday strolls. There were different sandwiches with different names. One of those sandwiches, called a mixto by most Cubans, eventually made its way to the United States, probably with immigrants to New York City. The original sandwich looked very different, often including turkey or chicken, and/or lettuce and tomatoes. When Cubans settled in Florida, the sandwich went from upper class treat to staple for workers in cigar factories and other occupations. The authors have done a delicious job of presenting Cuban and Florida history in all of its layers, and, along with the history, they include really interesting profiles of people and businesses that have made and continue to make contributions in Cuban sandwich-ology.
Henry Kissinger's recent death at age 100 marked the end of a roughly 70 year career as academic historian, National Security Advisor, Secretary of State, and advisor to a dozen presidents. He shaped much of America's Cold War policy and history, and he became one of the most powerful and influential men in all of American history, credited with overseeing detente with both the USSR and the People's Republic of China and negotiating the Paris Peace Accords that ended US involvement in Vietnam. His legacy is incredibly complicated, and historians will be struggling to unpack it and sort it out for decades. Was he a genius diplomat who worked tirelessly to achieve peace or was he a war criminal whose actions brought death and suffering on a huge scale, ultimately thwarting peace and stability?
Author Stephen A. Young's book tackles this question of legacy head-on, and one can correctly infer from the title what his opinion is. Young was on the ground during the Vietnam War, tasked with building support for South Vietnam's government amongst the local populations as part of the US-sponsored CORDS program. He went on to become an academic and think tank director. Here, he relies on formerly classified documents in American, Vietnamese, and Russian archives, numerous interviews, and especially the personal papers of U.S. Ambassador to South Vietnam, Ellsworth Bunker to accuse Kissinger of turning his back on the people of South Vietnam, deceiving President Nixon and other Cabinet members, along with the South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu, causing the collapse of South Vietnam when it could have survived otherwise. He makes a compelling case, and the background and history of the Vietnam conflict are phenomenally presented. However, it is obvious that Young does have a particular agenda, and his interpretations differ from the accepted view. For example, while conventional wisdom often portrays Nguyen Van Thieu as extremely corrupt and incompetent, I think Young portrays him almost as admirable, even heroic. And, of course, we will never know for sure if South Vietnam could have survived American withdrawal under different conditions. Biased as the author as, I still think the book adds to the history of the Vietnam War.
Author talk
Mermaid Confidential. Tim Dorsey. William Morrow, 2022. 368 pages. (#25 of 26 Serge Storms novels)
With national and world events in the state they're in, I felt the need for a quick for a quick mental palate cleanse, and what could be better than the continuing adventures of my favorite psychopathic, history-loving, serial-killing vigilante, Serge Storms. Serge is the creation of Tim Dorsey, the brilliantly twisted comic genius who unfortunately passed away far too early, one year ago this month. Serge Storms is a manic, obsessive, super-intelligent anti-hero who is Florida's biggest fan and supporter, constantly dispensing knowledge about everything Florida - history, culture, flora, fauna, climate, geology, all things Florida. He travels the state with his best buddy Coleman who is decidedly not intellectual and is, in fact, drunk and/or stoned most of the time. As they pursue their Florida adventures, they encounter really good people who have been grievously wronged by really bad people, and Serge goes into full vigilante mode, devising incredibly ingenious plots to exact revenge and set things right.
Mermaid is a love letter to the Florida Keys - and, yes, the Keys are a strange and different place from even the rest of Florida - and the reader learns about real locations, events, and cultural touchstones that make the Keys unique, including learning about Florida condo living, charter boat fishing, drug smuggling, cartel wars, and money laundering. (There's even a chapter set in Forsyth, Georgia that caught me by surprise.) The Serge novels are always fun and always educational. I'm glad that I have about 20 more to read, but sad that there aren't more to come. Why isn't there a Serge Storms TV series yet? Just begging for Danny McBride to produce it.
Audiobook preview
The Templar Legacy. Steve Berry. Ballantine Books, 2006. 496 pages. (Cotton Malone series, book 1 of 19)
Did you read the The Da Vinci Code twenty years ago, like everybody else? I did, and I remember enjoying the ride but feeling very unsatisfied upon completion, much like I felt with the tv show "Lost" (but not as intensely unsatisfied as I felt with "Lost"). In 2006, author Steve Berry began the adventures of Cotton Malone, a highly capable federal agent who retired to become an antique book dealer in Copenhagen. When his former boss has personal business in Copenhagen and pops in for a social visit, he finds himself embroiled in a mystery that disrupts and threatens not only his life, but the very foundations of western history and Christianity, a mystery involving the Knights Templar.
The Knights Templar order was an order of holy warriors formed during the Crusades in Jerusalem in 1118. Over the next two centuries, the order enjoyed favor and support from popes and secular kings, accumulating great power and wealth. Then, in the early 1300s, Pope Clement V, at the behest of French King Philip IV, declared war on the Knights Templar. The Templars were charged with blasphemy, greed, and all forms of sexual deviance. Thousands of Templars were brutally tortured and executed, their assets were seized, and the order was abolished. Or was it? Over the next seven hundred years, legends grew of hidden Templar treasures and lost Templar knowledge. Ex-agent Cotton Malone finds himself deeply involved in the Templar legend.
If you like mysteries grounded in real historical events, the Cotton Malone series is a series that you would probably enjoy.
A "best of" compilation
Don Rickles: The Merchant of Venom. Michael Seth Starr. Citadel, 2022. 352 pages.
Gen Xers and Baby Boomers definitely know who Don Rickles was. He was a comedy legend for decades even though he polarized audiences throughout his career. Fitting, because he was really two different people. In real life, he was a shy, quiet, introverted mama's boy, and his friends described him as incredibly kind, sweet, loving, generous, and loyal. On stage, he viciously attacked everybody, celebrities and civilians alike, making jokes that broke every single taboo and crossed every line, without regard to race, religion, gender, sexuality, politics, handicaps, and physical appearance. He was an equal opportunity offender, a lifelong Democrat who was friends with Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. Most of his targets took it in stride, believing that an insult from "Mr. Warmth" meant that you had made it. Others took the insults to heart. Audiences were divided as well, but Rickles zoomed to the top of his field, dominating stages and becoming a fixture on television in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. This biography is an informative and thorough recounting of his career, but it's somewhat superficial. There are no deep, dark personal tragedies, no alcohol, drug, or sexual abuse, no deep dives into anyone's psyche. However, that might be appropriate considering that the subject himself built an impregnable wall that separated his public and private personas.
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The Maltese Iguana. Tim Dorsey. William Morrow, 2023. 336 pages. Serge Storms series, #26 of 26.
I escaped again to Tim Dorsey's brilliantly hilarious Florida Man world, reading the last Serge Storms novel, published in 2023. But is it really an escape from real life? Dorsey's books are all filled to the brim with real life since plot lines are all taken from real life, and my favorite psychopathic history-loving serial killer Serge Storms dispenses more Florida history knowledge than any professor in each book, but the story is always presented in an unbelievably surreal and hysterically funny way. SERIOUSLY, WHY ISN'T THERE A DANNY MCBRIDE-PRODUCED SERGE STORMS TV SERIES?
In what is sadly the final chapter of the series, Serge and his buddy Coleman are loving life in their Florida Keys condo, all settled in to the routine of weekly game nights and spaghetti and meatballs potlucks with their neighbors, but then the pandemic hits, totally upending their world. As if that wasn't enough, they find themselves enmeshed in an overcomplicated CIA debacle, allowing Serge to expound on fifty years of CIA history in addition to Florida Keys history and Florida movie history.
Author podcast appearance
Eden Undone: A True Story of Sex, Murder, and Utopia at the Dawn of World War II. Abbott Kahler. Crown, 2024. 352 pages.
Take a handful of crazy Germans and a barren rugged flyspeck of an island in the Galapagos Archipelago in the chaotic decade of the 1930s, throw in a few American millionaire adventurers and a murder mystery, and you've got one hell of a story. Narrative nonfiction author Abbott Kahler recognized the hook of a great story and told it in Eden Undone. Kahler, the author of great books like The Ghosts of Eden Park, Sin in the Second City, and Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy. recently changed her name to avoid confusion with another author named Karen Abbott. After she discovered the story, she learned that movie director Ron Howard had also discovered it, making his own movie adaptation of the story, set for release in the very near future.
The first crazy Germans central to the story are an unhappy housewife diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and an arrogant doctor who detests sick people, follows the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, and believes that a life of primitive living, vegetarianism, and nudism will enable him and others to live to be 150 or older. They meet, fall into something (love? not like you've known it hopefully), convince their spouses to "free" them, arrange for their spouses to move in together as husband and wife, and decide to move to the island of Floreana to establish their own personal utopia. Once settled on the island, word gets out in the world press, and they're joined, despite their objections, by a German couple looking for their own slice of Eden and a baroness with her two male sex slaves who plans to make Floreana a resort city for the wealthy, a new Miami Florida. Lots and lots of tension ensues, and ultimately the baroness and one of her slaves disappear, never to be seen or heard from again. "Gilligan's Island," it ain't - unless you picture an S&M, fetishistic version with elements of "Desperate Housewives," and Ryan Murphy productions thrown in. It's a fantastic story that proves truth is stranger than fiction, and this is a great book. I read it over the course of two days.
Audiobook preview
The Big Bamboo. Tim Dorsey. William Morrow, 2006. 352 pages. Serge Storms series, book 8 of 26.
In this, the 8th of 26 titles in the Tim Dorsey series relating the adventures of history -loving psychopath Serge Storms, Serge and his best buddy Coleman indulge Serge's current obsession with movies. Serge's search for inspiration to fuel his screenwriting efforts takes them on a madcap dash through Tampa, Orlando, and Miami before a family tragedy leads to the next logical location: Hollywood. In Hollywood, Serge lands smack-dab in the middle of a chaotic scene involving two incredibly sleazy film-producing brothers, who make Serge look like Mr. Morality, Japanese organized crime hitmen, and murderous Alabama rednecks out for revenge. The plot is, of course, overly complicated and involves a huge cast of characters - true for every Serge Storms novel - but all the loose threads come together in the end, and of course, there is lots of history and lots of mayhem along the way. Honestly, this may be least favorite Serge novel so far, but I still love the series and want more.
The 1853 Dinner Party inside the Dinosaur described in the book
Dinosaurs at the Dinner Party: How an Eccentric group of Victorians Discovered Prehistoric Creatures and Accidentally Upended the World. Edward Dolnick. Scribner, 2024. 352 pages.
Natural history was all the rage in Victorian England. It seemed that everyone spent their leisure time communing with nature, walking, climbing, and beachcombing, collecting animals, plants, rocks, and fossils. They assembled personal collections which they proudly displayed, museums were established and attendance bloomed, and scientific lecturers drew standing room only crowds across the country. Scientists who were charismatic and attractive had audiences of adoring female fans hanging on every word. The prevailing attitude was that God had created a perfect world functioned smoothly according to his plan, and that science existed in order to prove and illuminate His work. That worldview began to deteriorate around 1800 when fossilized remains of previously unknown creatures were discovered and studied. They had been found before, explained away as dragons, cyclops, unicorns, animals that didn't catch Noah's ark, fakes planted by either God or Satan to confuse, but a handful of people began looking at them differently, and their claims shook the Victorian mindset, raising confounding questions. How can this be when the earth is only 6,000 years old? Extinction was impossible -how could God make that part of His plan? How could there possibly have been an entirely different world with entirely different creatures long before Man ever arrived on the scene when the world was created for Man to enjoy?
This book is incredibly entertaining and educational as it describes the work of these important, and eccentric, pioneers, the discoveries and theories that preceded their work, and the effects of their work on Victorian thinking. It's one of my favorite reads of the year so far.
