Star Island was published by Knopf in 2010. Cherry Pye (née Cheryl Bunterman) is a twenty-two-year-old pop star whose talent is negligible but whose trainwreck lifestyle generates constant tabloid coverage. After her latest near-fatal overdose, her handlers hire Ann DeLusia as a body double — someone who looks enough like Cherry to fool paparazzi while the real Cherry recovers in rehab.
The scheme unravels when Bang Abbott, a veteran celebrity photographer, realizes the woman he’s photographing isn’t Cherry. Meanwhile, a deranged fan fixates not on Cherry but on Ann, and Skink — who materializes on Star Island (a Miami Beach enclave of mansions) — involves himself in characteristically unpredictable ways.
Hiaasen uses the celebrity-industrial complex as his satirical target: the publicists, managers, paparazzi, gossip websites, and fans who collectively create the fiction of celebrity while the actual person disintegrates.
Collecting Star Island
First edition (Knopf, New York, 2010): Boards with dust jacket.
Market values:
- First edition, fine in jacket: $15–$25
- Signed first: $30–$60