{"id":159,"date":"2004-04-09T22:52:00","date_gmt":"2004-04-09T22:52:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=159"},"modified":"2004-04-09T22:52:00","modified_gmt":"2004-04-09T22:52:00","slug":"159","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=159","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Tropic of Night<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

If I had to describe Michael Gruber’s new novel Tropic of Night<\/em><\/a> in Hollywoodese, I would say that it’s “(Miami crime writer) Edna Buchanan<\/a> meets (ethnobotanist) Wade Davis<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

Detectives, sorcerers, preschoolers, santeros, this world, the otherworld, all handled deadpan:<\/p>\n

“I read threat in the way they were standing: two Latina women in tan servant’s uniforms, a dark woman with shopping bags, with a little girl and an older boy in tow; a zombie; two thin Oriental guys in cook’s whites speaking Cuban Spanish, and a very fat copper-skinned woman with a cane and a palm fan, all typically what you would find at any such corner in low-rent Miami, except maybe for the zombie.”<\/p>\n

Thanks for the tip to Steve Bodio, whose own latest book is Eagle Dreams<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tropic of Night If I had to describe Michael Gruber’s new novel Tropic of Night in Hollywoodese, I would say that it’s “(Miami crime writer) Edna Buchanan meets (ethnobotanist) Wade Davis.” Detectives, sorcerers, preschoolers, santeros, this world, the otherworld, all handled deadpan: “I read threat in the way they were standing: two Latina women in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s6xQTg-159","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4317,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=4317","url_meta":{"origin":159,"position":0},"title":"My Son “Was No Zombie”","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 31, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"So says the mother of the man shot by Miami police while eating the face of his victim. But catch what the girlfriend says: \" ' That wasn\u2019t him, that was his body but it wasn\u2019t his spirit.\u00a0 Somebody did this to him,' WFOR quotes her as saying.\" Isn't that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"weirdness\"","block_context":{"text":"weirdness","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=weirdness"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3337,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3337","url_meta":{"origin":159,"position":1},"title":"Thinking about the Zombie Apocalypse","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 28, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"The tremendous growth in the imaginary zombie population amazes me. Maybe, like other bubbles, this one is about to burst. But in the meantime, literary, cinematic, Web, and re-enacted zombification seems to go in two directions. 1. Practice killing the zombies. There were a lot more stages, and to be\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"culture\"","block_context":{"text":"culture","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=culture"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1605,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1605","url_meta":{"origin":159,"position":2},"title":"Put Away the Maypole …","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 7, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":". . . and load all the guns, because it's\u00a0Zombie Awareness Month. Supporters of Zombie Awareness Month wear a gray ribbon to signify the undead shadows that lurk behind our modern light of day.\u00a0 From May 1 through May 31, concerned citizens take this small step to acknowledge the coming\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"weirdness\"","block_context":{"text":"weirdness","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=weirdness"},"img":{"alt_text":"Zombie Awaress Month Gray Ribbon campaign","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.zombieresearch.org\/images\/150_ZAM-3.gif?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3479,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3479","url_meta":{"origin":159,"position":3},"title":"On Becoming a Killer of Zombies","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 11, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"At the Pop Theology blog, another attempt to figure out the zombie craze, via review of a new collection of essays, Triumph of the Walking Dead. It is based on the AMC series, but goes far beyond it. From a pop theology perspective, the most interesting essays cover morality, meaning(lessness),\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"scholarship\"","block_context":{"text":"scholarship","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=scholarship"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6720,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6720","url_meta":{"origin":159,"position":4},"title":"La fiesta de los zombies","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 27, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"What do New Mexico zombies eat? Brain tacos, of course. 2 lbs. brains 6\u20138 tortillas 1 fresh tomato, sliced 1 small onion, diced, shredded lettuce 1 teaspoon salt 1\/4 teaspoon garlic powder salt and pepper to taste Cover brains with water in saucepan, add salt and simmer 15 minutes. Drain\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"scholarship\"","block_context":{"text":"scholarship","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=scholarship"},"img":{"alt_text":"better off dead","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/better-off-dead-202x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2756,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=2756","url_meta":{"origin":159,"position":5},"title":"Gallimaufry with Forbidden Phrases","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 14, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"\u2022 According to John Rentoul of the British newspaper The Independent, these phrases should be banned due to overuse. He tips his hat to George Orwell, all well and good, but someone in the comments notes that the Irish satirist Brian O'Nolan also eviscerated bureaucratese in his day, which was\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"death\"","block_context":{"text":"death","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=death"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=159"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}