Ian Frazier has been writing for the New Yorker since his first "Talk of the Town" piece in 1974. The 46 career-spanning selections collected in The Snakes That Ate Florida: Reporting, Essays, and Criticism offer a generous sampling of his work for that magazine and others, demonstrating the encyclopedic breadth of his curiosity and the versatility of his writing.
Of the three categories identified in the book's subtitle, more than two-thirds of the pieces gathered here fall under the heading of reporting, but there is significant variety within its scope. The shorter offerings, touching on subjects like a rodeo in Madison Square Garden and the pool hustler Minnesota Fats, depend more for their appeal on Frazier's observational skill, keen wit, and economical prose than they do on one's interest in their occasionally dated subject matter. However, they are consistently pleasing nonetheless and whet the appetite for the more substantial journalism to come.
The examples of Frazier's long-form writing include historical excursions to the 13th-century Mongol Empire, alongside "Frogpocalypse Now," a sometimes tongue-in-cheek examination of the cane toad, whose members "sit and look at you as if you owe them money" as they overrun southern Florida's housing developments and shopping centers.
Frazier is equally adept at the personal essay, and he reviews a biography of the Lakota warrior Crazy Horse, among the several examples of his criticism featured here. The seeming ease with which Frazier writes about such a variety of subjects might cause some to devalue his work, but his ability to sustain such high quality, informative, and entertaining journalism for half a century speaks eloquently to his talent. --Harvey Freedenberg, freelance reviewer