Nature Girl was published by Knopf in 2006. Honey Santana is a manic, passionate woman living in a trailer in Everglades City who receives a telemarketing call at dinner time. Unlike most people, she doesn’t just hang up — she tracks down the telemarketer, Boyd Shreave, and lures him and his mistress to a remote island in the Ten Thousand Islands for what she describes as an “eco-tour” but is actually a psychological education session.
The island becomes a pressure cooker as other characters converge: Honey’s ex-husband Perry (following in a kayak to protect her from herself); Louis Piejack, a fish-house pervert with a mutilated hand who is obsessed with Honey; Sammy Tigertail, a Seminole Indian wrestling with his identity; and a pair of bird-watching tourists. Hiaasen uses the Ten Thousand Islands — a labyrinth of mangrove islets — as both setting and metaphor: a place where civilization’s rules dissolve and people are left with only their essential natures.
Collecting Nature Girl
First edition (Knopf, New York, 2006): Boards with dust jacket.
Market values:
- First edition, fine in jacket: $15–$25
- Signed first: $30–$60