As a young woman I worked in the law firm of McCune, Hiaasen, Crum, Ferris and Gardner for Attorney Davis W. Duke, Jr. I loved working there. One of the partners that I respected was Kermit Odel Hiaasen. Odel’s stubborn Norwegian father Carl had moved from Devils Lake area of North Dakota where he farmed until 1922, then headed to Florida and ultimately founded the McCune, Hiaasen law firm. Odel was, to me, of the old school of southern gentlemen lawyers, nothing like the Tommy Jefferson character on television’s Harry’s Law. Tommy can be a hoot, but is always pushing the envelope to its limits. Odel always appeared to be a principled and honorable man, more along the Matlock character played by Andy Griffith. Don’t recall Odel wearing seersucker, but he might have! Odel was born in 1925 and died in 1976, too young at 50. The ND Carl Hiaasen was born on May 26, 1894 and lived to be 100! He died in Ft. Lauderdale on June 14, 1994.
Moving to North Carolina ultimately, I fondly recalled this firm, but never really gave much thought to Odel or the staff. Then, I heard of Carl Hiaasen, the writer. Could this be Odel’s son? Yes!
I now live in Brevard County, Florida, and have rediscovered the Hiaasen family. Carl Andrew Hiaasen was a reporter with Brevard’s Cocoa Today back in the 1970s, and then he moved on to the Miami Herald where he is today a well-known columnist (since 1985), and also an author since 1981. As a genealogy buff, I started researching the life of Odel’s son Carl. By the way, Cocoa Today is now Florida Today and serves the Brevard County area.
Rob Hiaasen of the Baltimore Sun relayed in one of his columns that “In the 1860s, Knud and Mari Hiaasen bolted from the frigid, desolate country of Norway for the frigid, desolate country of North Dakota. They had babies, who had babies, who had babies who would all spend their lives spelling their last name for strangers.” Cute. With the name of Cator, I spend my life spelling my last name also. Guess I have bolted too, to Florida.
Knud (born 1862 in Norway) and Mari had several children, two of whom were Oscar and Carl. Oscar headed the branch that moved way out west; Carl moved to the warmth of Florida. Knud and Mari never left the frigid North Dakota. Knud died in Benson County ND in 1946 and is buried at Antiochia Cemetery; Mari died previously in 1941 and likely is also buried there, but I am uncertain of this fact.
We know already that writer Carl Hiaasen’s grandfather was also named Carl. Grandfather Carl lived in the Wilton Manors section of the fine city of Fort Lauderdale and so did his son, young Kermit Odel Hiaasen who would become the father of writer and columnist Carl Hiaasen.
Columnist and author Carl Hiaasen, the eldest of four children, was born in March of 1953 in Plantation, Florida, to Kermit Odel (a lawyer) and Patricia Moran Hiaasen (a teacher). Per Notable Biographies, Carl “grew up in Southern Florida and spent his childhood romping through the mangrove swamps and freshwater lagoons surrounding his home.” At 17 Carl married Constance Lyford; they divorced after 26 years of marriage and he moved to the keys where three years later he married Fenia Clizer in 1999. Carl received his journalism major from University of Florida in 1974. He now calls Islamorada home. So, there we have a bit on his ancestry and it seems appropriate to address more on who this best selling author Carl Hiaasen is today.
His writing expertise has allowed him the leverage to comment publicly on the environment, including the vanishing of some of the Everglades to intense and even corrupt growth. I became aware of his position on the environment when I started reading his wacky and hilarious and even satirical best selling books, which at times are layered with scenes and facts regarding the impact of Florida’s history of uncontrolled development. I wonder how he feels about the fact that McCune Hiaasen represented many property developers.
His mother, Patricia, guided his enthusiasm for books, and his appreciation and love of nature. Carl is a bookworm that learned to read at 4 while enjoying biking and snagging snakes! At 6 years of age he talked his parents into his own typewriter and often wrote short stories about sports. Eventually he learned to fume and rant with infused humor to capture an audience in a satirical newspaper he began during his high school years called More Trash.
He collaborated on his first book with co-author William Montalbano in the 1981 work entitled Powder Burn, which had a storyline about cocaine wars in Miami. He likes to take on tough topics and current issues. In 1987 he wrote his first solo novel, Tourist Season, a fast-paced read. In 1993 he wrote Strip Tease about a woman who worked as a dancer to earn money to fight for custody of her daughter. Demi Moore and Burt Reynolds starred in this movie! He hit the New York Times’ bestseller list when he wrote the quirky and at times absurd Skinny Dip in 2004 about a corrupt marine biologist endangering the Everglades and trying to live with murdering his wife that he tossed off a cruise ship, not knowing that she encountered and hung onto a floating marijuana bale which saved her life for crazy adventures with retired detective Stranahan. This name caught my attention immediately as I graduated from Fort Lauderdale’s Stranahan High School. His characters are often wacky, but Hiaasen claims they come from real life headline ideas.
His childhood friend Clyde Ingalls killed himself in high school. Hiaasen introduced his lost friend into his adult readership books as “Skink” a rough and wild woodsman character who hates developers impacting his Everglades. I am currently reading Star Island where Skink is a renegade governor. Clyde Ingalls is reportedly also written into his young adult novel Hoot as the feral child. Hoot earned Carl his first Newbery Honor and became his second cinema.
Though he only wrote about sports on his typewriter in his youth, in 1970 his life passion for fishing, especially for bonefish, began while in an aluminum jon boat with friend Bob Branham near Cotton Key. The jon boat was powered by a small Mercury outboard and their pole was a closet pole. Hiaasen has since won the Islamorada All Tackle Bonefish Tournament using flies instead of live bait. He has fun with a guitar on occasion (which also helps him get past writer’s block) and is an outspoken liberal Democrat who has found favor with both Republican and Democrat readers who enjoy his engaging writing style. He does not typically take pleasure from being interviewed and resists having his picture taken even though photography highlights his blue eyes and handsome face.
Carl Hiaasen is also a songwriter who partnered with Warren Zevon to write Seminole Bingo and Rottweiler Blues on Zevon’s Mutineer album. A heedful lyric refrain from Rottweiler Blues is:
If you come calling
He’ll be mauling with intent to maim
Don’t knock on my door
If you don’t know my Rottweiler’s name
As noted earlier, cousin Rob Hiaasen is a columnist with the Baltimore Sun. Carl is a columnist with the Miami Herald and now Carl’s son Scott has followed dad’s footsteps and is a journalist with the Miami Herald.
So we have a native-born Floridian (as are two of my sons) who looks similar to his Hiaasen Norwegian ancestors, who wraps his ecological causes into plots of mayhem and lunacy, or at least lunatic happenings, that fill the reader with concern for the environment, with enjoyment of oddly remarkable characters and with memorable lines to share with fellow readers.
“Writing is very selfish,” per Carl Hiaasen. Perhaps that is why I like to write too!