Ready to give a hoot

DIEHARD Floridian Carl Hiaasen, author of several savagely witty adult novels and longtime muckraker for the Miami Herald, might be the last person anyone would expect to pen a feel-good story for kids about the endangered burrowing owls of the Sunshine State. But probe a little deeper into Hiaasen’s background and it makes sense that the bestselling satire “Skinny Dip� and the Newberry Honor-winning “Hoot� came from the same skewed but sharp mind. As a kid poking around the Everglades, Hiaasen collected bags of rat snakes and would dump them on his porch, much to the horror of his mother. Hiaasen has affection for all the animals of his state, no matter how maligned.

In nearly all of his books, Florida’s animals parade through with fearsome pride -- for example, the retiree-eating crocodile in “Tourist Season� and the barracuda who chomps off hit man Chemo’s arm in “Skin Tight.� The owls in “Hoot� are, as Hiaasen says, “sweet as can be,� but they’re about to be paved over to make way for Mother Paula’s All-American Pancake House. With the help of the young guerrilla activist Mullet Fingers, his tough sister, Beatrice, and the practical-minded new kid in town, Roy, the owls get a second chance.

The diminutive birds aren’t the only ones who get a shot at redemption. The film version of “Hoot,� which opens Friday, offers co-producer Hiaasen another crack at the movie biz. “Striptease,� the first movie based on one of his books with Demi Moore as the FBI secretary-turned-exotic-dancer, was uniformly panned. But “Hoot� has been easier going, with contributions from old friend Jimmy Buffett and with former University of Florida student Wil Shriner as writer and director. “It was hatched by all three of us,� says Hiaasen, “a little Florida mafia.�

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You were just in Southern California for some screenings of “Hoot.� How would you compare Southern California with Florida?

Florida was settled so haphazardly and recklessly, and I think it pushes people to extremes. My impression of Southern California was always that it was a little strange in a laid-back way, but there’s nothing laid-back about Florida, for better or worse.

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Was it a stretch to write young adult fiction after years of writing adult novels filled with pungent language and gruesome deaths?

Don’t forget acrobatic sex and random dismemberment. But no, it wasn’t hard. “Hoot� was a much more personal book written for the kids in my family: my nieces, my nephew and my stepson. They weren’t old enough to read my adult novels, and I thought, “Wouldn’t it be great to write a book that I could give to them without getting them taken away to the Division of Family Services?� But I also wanted it to maintain the irreverent tone that’s in the other novels. Kids dig the sarcasm and irreverence.

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Were you ever concerned that kids wouldn’t feel drawn to a story with environmental themes?

I didn’t worry about it, I just wrote from the heart. The most rewarding thing with this book has been the letters. I’ve gotten thousands of them from schools where “Hoot� is being taught. Kids have this incredible clarity about what’s right and wrong. It’s not about the Endangered Species Act or property laws. It’s just “Wait a minute, you don’t have to build that here on top of these little birds.�

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So what are your thoughts about Hollywood after round two?

Well, it’s certainly been a long way from “Strip Tease� to “Hoot.� But if you want the truth, I had more anxiety about this project than I did “Strip Tease.� Kids are incredibly loyal readers, but they’re very demanding. If there’s any deviation from the book in the movie, they pick up on it right away and they can be very critical.

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In “Hoot,� the burrowing owls command a fair amount of screen time.

I wanted the owls to appear but not do anything supernatural. They don’t talk, it’s just them. Occasionally Wil would say someone was off building a mechanical owl, and I would say, “No, no, no.� I had nightmare visions of the gopher in “Caddyshack.� I love that movie, but I didn’t want a dancing owl with Kenny Loggins singing behind it.

There are not a lot of these birds left. They had to find some in captivity, and they could only come up with about three. It’s sad. There were hundreds when I was a kid, but many have been paved over, bulldozed and killed.

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Did you ever practice Mullet Fingers’ brand of vigilante justice?

Oh, I certainly rearranged my share of survey stakes with my friends. We were 10, 11 years old and we’d show up with our fishing poles and there would be stakes in the ground. If no one was on the job, we’d either rearrange the stakes or just take them out. But all it does is stall them. It doesn’t solve the problem, but when you’re a kid you don’t know what to do. We didn’t know about zoning boards and city councils.

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Your column for the Miami Herald tackles any issue that captures your ire. Do you ever get tired of being, well, ticked off?

Well, I try not to stand on a soapbox and scream. That’s boring. You’ve got to be funny sometimes. All my humor comes from anger. Satire is terrific therapy. Making people laugh is a joy, but making them think about something serious is the ultimate reward.

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Has there been any movement with “Skinny Dip�? When was the last time you talked to Mike Nichols, who optioned it for a film?

I just talked to him today! He’s hoping to have everything lined up for next year. I got to spend two days last fall in New York with Mike and Elaine May, who’s writing the script. I’m sitting there pinching myself and they’re shooting jokes and ideas back and forth. I thought, “Even if this movie doesn’t get made, this is a pretty cool place to be.�

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What are you working on now?

I’m in the last painful throes of finishing a novel called “Nature Girl.� It will be out in November, and it’s very much for grown-ups.

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Any hints on what it’s about?

Well, it’s very disturbing. I don’t want to burden you with it.

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Try me.

A woman has an unpleasant encounter with a telemarketer and decides to teach him a lesson. It’s typically sordid. I’m not proud of some of the things that happen in this book, but the characters just run away from me. I can’t help it.

-- Margaret Wappler