Homegrown in Florida

McKeen (journalism, Boston Univ.) offers here a remarkable collection of 37 fiction excerpts, poems, lyrics, and essays about growing up in the Sunshine State in the pre-Disney days. Well-known Florida novelists Carl Hiaasen, Michael Connelly, and Tim Dorsey contribute selections and fiction excerpts from Zora Neale Hurston and Robb White are included. In “Riding the Wave,” Ken Block, lead singer of the band Sister Hazel, writes about his younger brother’s death from cancer. In “The Only Israeli in Town,” journalist Boaz Dvir recalls his experience attending a public high school in a redneck town, while Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Tom Petty recalls meeting Elvis Presley. McKeen, who won the 2011 Florida Book Awards Gold Medal for Nonfiction for Mile Marker Zero, includes his own essay about growing up on Homestead Air Force Base, north of the Keys, during the Cuban Missile Crisis.