Interview with Andrew Furman, author of “Of Slash Pines and Manatees”
We are trying to highlight more Florida authors and books about Florida. Can you share a little about your connection to the state of Florida?
Sure. I moved here in 1996 for my first (and probably last!) academic job, but I didn’t have any prior connection to the state, other than having visited elderly relatives a few times. I think about the connection I forged to the state sort of like the way F. Scott Fitzgerald talked about going broke. “Gradually, then all of a sudden.” What I mean by that is that I was so focused on my work those first few years that it actually took me a bit of time to open my eyes to the unique natural splendor of Florida. But then I’d be working on my computer and noticed this gorgeous little yellow bird with chestnut cheeks and finally wonder, “Wow, what kind of bird is that?” And then I took notice of an unusual grove of oak trees on my college campus (FAU) and wondered what the oaks were called and how they got planted there. That sort of thing. Once I started taking notice of the special plants and animals all about, I just couldn’t stop taking notice.
The title of your upcoming book, Of Slash Pines and Manatees: A Highly Selective Field Guide to My Suburban Wilderness, describes a relationship between Florida’s suburban life and wildlife. What inspired this topic?
Florida, at least the southeastern region of the state with which I’m most familiar, is simultaneously one of the most overdeveloped areas of the country AND one of the most naturally gorgeous places in the country. For whatever reason, I’ve been interested in the intermingling between the constructed and the unconstructed landscapes, and also the intermingling of all sorts of other apparent opposites: wild/domestic, nature/culture, native/non-native. About the time I was thinking these thoughts, I came across a passage from the poet, Mary Oliver, who lived in FL during the later years of her life. In Owls and Other Fantasies, she writes, “the world where the owl is endlessly hungry and endlessly in the hunt is the world in which I live too. There is only one world.” This resonated with me, as it jibed with how I was starting to see the constructed and unconstructed suburban landscape outside my window, that it was all really one world. My title, and the essays themselves, explore how porous these boundaries truly are between all these supposed binaries.
What new things did you learn about your state and local wildlife while writing this book?
Oh gosh, tons of things, really everything that’s in the book. One way I think about these chapters, in fact, is that they document my journey coming to know the various subjects that inspired them. For example, just to stick with my title, I didn’t know much of anything about manatees, their curious life cycles and physiology (that they’re essentially blind, for example, and sense a good bit of their world through fine hairs all about their body), their tangled history with us, or, if I can extend this to local plants, I didn’t know anything about slash pines’ fascinating relationship with fire and red cockaded woodpeckers, or their connection to rather reprehensible episodes of our human story in Florida, specifically the lynching of black men during the Jim Crow era and the exploitative and downright criminal labor practices of the turpentine industry. I really saw each chapter as an opportunity to learn as much as I could about painted buntings, stingrays, seaweed, foxes, etc, and to share these good, bad, and ugly discoveries with my readers.
You have written several Florida-themed books, including Bitten: My Unexpected Love Affair with Florida and Jewfish. What inspires you to write about Florida?
Honestly, it may simply boil down to the fact that I found myself here and that enough aspects of the state (environmental and otherwise) appealed to my wife and me that we decided that it would be the place where we’d raise our family and probably live for the rest of our lives (barring unforeseen circumstances). For whatever reason, it has become important to me to know my place, both literally and figuratively. But I can’t say that, had we settled in, say, Colorado, for job or family reasons, that I wouldn’t have found myself equally inspired by the unique “placeness” of that state. I’d probably be a mountain hiker instead of a fisherman and would come into contact with all sorts of different plants and animals on those forays. My hope in writing the book is that it would appeal not only to Florida-based people, but also inspire people in all fifty states to forge a connection with their own home place.
This fall, your novel, The World That We Are this fall, inspired by Henry David Thoreau, will be released. What other “place-based” writers— Floridian or otherwise — have inspired your work?
Oh boy, just off the top of my head, and blurring genres and regions and periods, I’d name Barry Lopez, Willa Cather, Rachel Carson, Terry Tempest Williams, Mike Branch, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Scott Russell Sanders, Jesmyn Ward, David Gessner, Claire Boyles, Marilynne Robinson, Leigh Newman, Mary Oliver, Susan Cerulean, Janisse Ray, Elizabeth Strout, Richard Powers, Margaret Renkl, Peter Orner, Lauren Groff, J. Drew Lanham, etc. etc. I realize that some of these writers may not be considered “place-based,” per se, but I’m always attracted to whatever writing evokes place in profound, meaningful, and sustained ways, in ways, that is, which probe the connections between place and people, or what we call “character.” I've given short shrift to poetry in this listing, and I read poetry in a much more haphazard way, but in addition to Mary Oliver, I'd definitely give a shout out to my poetry colleagues at FAU, Becka McKay and Romeo Oriogun, both of whom evoke place so trenchantly in their work.
Did you learn anything new about the relationship between humanity and the outdoors while writing this book?
I think I covered some of this above, but, yes, I do feel that our social lives, so to speak, and the environment in which we live are inextricably connected. So, I'd just start there, by acknowledging this connection as we live at a time when our daily lives are mediated by so many technological distractions, which are essentially placeless. In all these chapters, I explore not only the animals and plants, in and of themselves, but our various connections to these environmental phenomena, the way in which our stories have intersected with the animals and plants outside our doors. What also might be related to what I’m saying here is that I turn toward the outdoors not just, or even partly, as an escape from my domestic and workplace life, but as a complement to the “indoor” roles that I occupy. To put it more concretely, when I head outdoors for a hopeful sighting of our neighborhood fox, I’m carrying along my father-self, as well, thinking thoughts about my adolescent daughter as I search out our fox, wondering how observing foxes, and learning about them, might offer a new angle of vision onto my daughter’s animal self, and all our animal selves.
Where do you feel the most connected to Florida’s outdoors?
This is an easy one as over the past ten years or so I’ve become a pretty dedicated open-water swimmer and, even more recently, a surfer. I definitely feel most connected to the Florida outdoors when I’m swimming with stingrays and manatees in the Atlantic Ocean, or straddling my surfboard, taking in the pelicans and royal terns gliding past. There’s definitely something magical about our watery places in Florida, I think, and immersing ourselves in these spaces.
How often do you visit Florida Atlantic University's burrowing owls?
Not as often as I’d like these days, to be honest, but I do keep loose tabs on their nests. There is one active nest pretty close to my office and I love watching them do their thing. I do worry that we’ve “relocated” too many of their burrows into ever-shrinking patches of real estate on campus.
What do you think makes Florida distinct from other states?
This is a huge question, part of which I think I’ve alluded to when I remarked upon the simultaneous overdevelopment and natural splendor. So that’s one thing. But also, given our subtropical zone at this toe-tip of the continent, we just enjoy native flora and fauna that either don’t exist at all in the other states, or exist only marginally in some other states. I engage with some of these plants and animals in the book to offer readers hailing from wherever a glimpse of the uniqueness of the Sunshine State. I also think that our miles and miles of coastline—given that we’re a peninsula--distinguishes FL from most other states. Plus our natural springs mostly in the middle and middle-north of the state, which are suffering from all sorts of human borne environmental problems (e.g., leaky septic tanks, fertilizer runoff), problems we’re trying to address but could be addressing more responsibly. I would be remiss not to mention our embattled Everglades, as well, probably the most unique environmental feature of our state, and a good place to stop.
What is it that you hope readers take with them after reading this book?
I hope that readers in all fifty states take inspiration in my forays to conduct their own explorations—in whatever form that takes—of the unique outdoor environments of the place they call home.
Of Slash Pines and Manatees will be released March 18, 2025.
This interview was conducted by Grace Mackey.
