This anthology of modern Florida fiction showcases the best Florida fiction of the century's last decades. What these stories have in common, of course, is a Florida setting -- but a Florida so strongly evoked that it is more character than place. In these stories Florida is sinister, full of alligators, creeping plants, heavy clouds, noir cops, and con artists; it is the surreal spread of theme parks, condominiums, and strip malls; and it is a paradise -- lost, regained, and remembered -- of sea, sun, hammock, forest, and glade.