Growing up in the Florida Keys of 1966 would seem to have been ideal - if it weren't so hilariously miserable. Key Largo was far from paradise for those living a hardscrabble existence off the sea, and what little soil wasn’t washed off the narrow, coral slab island chain by hurricanes. The water gave, and the water took away. And still the Conchs survived, descended from pirates and rum-runners, with the same grit and determination—and a sense of humor as dry as the salt in the relentlessly still, scorching air.
The characters in Temptation Key are tough, even when they don't know it, and dangerous when they do—especially to themselves. They have a deep love of life they may not understand or accept, no matter how much they laugh and cry together, or mock those who mock them; but tomorrow is as far away as the next millennium and riches as unattainable as an igloo. Certainly for 18-year-old Robbie Mann and his young friend Buddy, who is 14 and trying desperately to get older as fast as he can—or fit into any group without feeling as uncomfortable as a crab in a bait box. But when everyone is so weird, so unhappy, and so horny all the time, what's a kid to do?
Then there are the damn tourists, those awful people from the North, from Miami. What in Hell's good name do they think they’re doing down here fishing, skiing, tearing up the grass flats, snorkeling over the cement Jesus, eating "green" key lime pie and tipping like unemployed preachers? Thank God for Mondays.
A coming of age story about life, love, sex and violence in an age some call innocent—and others recall as flat-out scary-dangerous, when rules were few and exceptions were many: that was how Conchs lived and died, and what made doing both so difficult and funny at the same time. Temptation Key will make you laugh out loud and remember your own difficult times, whenever you were born, wherever you were raised. This American story resonates in a way that few do; it feels as real as our own lives, populated with the people we knew and loved, hated and feared, admired and never understood. Sometimes crude, often rude, always true.
