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Much of Winter in Florida's impact, you feel, comes from its unfamiliarity--the sheer weirdness of scene, circumstance and mental outlook--but there is something else as well, a matter-of-factness, a patient absorption in this worm's-eye view of the world. It might be an axiom that talented American novelists grow on trees at the moment, but here is another addition to their ranks. D. J. Taylor, The London Independent |
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Edward Falco is hot---a collection of stories and a novel published within two months of each other. Whether his subject is backstretch workers at a racetrack in Winter in Florida or philosophizing barflys in the title story of Plato at Scratch Daniel's, Falco writes hard-edged, uncompromising fiction. His is a name to remember. –– Booklist In Winter in Florida, his first full-length novel, Edward Falco presents a brutally powerful and chilling tale. .... Winter in Florida is no vacation. It is, however, a memorable experience. ––Bill Cushing, The Florida Times-Union Falco's portrait of dreary low-rent craziness in roadhouses, trailers, and shacks rings true... ––Kirkus Reviews Edward Falco's Winter in Florida is a very tough, very violent first novel by a writer of considerable ability. His short stories, essays and poems have appeared in a number of scholarly periodicals; he has won awards for his short fiction, and he teaches writing at Virginia Polytechnic Institute. Before that, he worked eight years as a manual laborer, as well as a stable hand at various race tracks. ....Falco knows what he's writing about. He has a fine ear for dialogue and his people sound like race-trackers, most of whom are uneducated, insular, cynical, foulmouthed and locked into behavioral codes not unlike those of the Old West. ––William Murray, Los Angeles Times Book Review
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Winter in Florida is a powerful, compelling and disturbing novel. Falco's prose style is neither subtle nor delicate--it is as blunt and raw as its subject. The plot, rendered in a series of vignettes that continually shift in time, location, character, and point of view, is confusing at times. But eventually all these fragments come together, and the narrative settles into a linear, causal structure. The graphic depiction of violence and sexual brutality is intentionally revolting, and it will surely offend some people. But what is really provocative and disturbing about the novel is that it rips off the veneer of middle-class, respectable values and reveals the heart of darkness within us all.
––Erie Nelson, The Roanoke Times & World News
Mr. Falco sketches powerful portraits... What makes Winter in Florida work is Mr. Falco's resistance to the temptation to condescend to his characters and impose middle-class moral judgments on their actions. Instead, he makes a compelling case that within their own cultural context, their descent into an ever-widening maelstrom of violence is logical and even inevitable.
––Forrest Rogers, The Atlanta Journal and Constitution
Winter in Florida is readable and powerful--a page turner with literary intentions...
––David Holmberg, The Philadelphia Inquirer