Synopsis
After his father's death, Dennis Covington plunges into a Florida shootout to claim his only inheritance, two and a half worthless acres of land that his father bought in a real estate scam-but the more determined he becomes to share his father's dream with his own children, the more it seems that his true legacy is bad judgment in real estate. In a tale filled with characters drawn from a Florida like Flannery O'Connor's Georgia, Covington finds his life threatened, his truck torched, and his small cabin shot up and vandalized, but he clings to his inheritance with heartbreaking tenacity. Redneck Riviera is at once a comic and tender celebration of family, a brilliant look at the clash of values tearing much of rural America apart, and a bittersweet comment on our age-old passion to possess and transform the land.
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About the Author
Dennis Covington is the author of two novels, a memoir, and Salvation on Sand Mountain. He is also a journalist and a professor of literature at Texas Tech University. He lives in Lubbock, Texas.
From Publishers Weekly
Rednecks, armadillos and outlaws all play only ancillary roles in National Book Award nominee (for Salvation on Sand Mountain) Covington's touching, meandering tribute to his father. And although the title is somewhat misleading, the American dream is front and center as two generations of the Covingtons tenaciously pursue it. In 1965, the elder Covington bought a two-and-half-acre plot in River Ranch Acres, a Florida real estate scam. The land was worthless, never surveyed, miles from the nearest road, and when his father died in 1988, the younger Covington inherited it. Unfortunately, a band of locals, hunters and ne'er-do-wells calling themselves The Hunt Club had since fenced off the entire area and, with guns, restricted access to outsiders. Undeterred, deed in hand, the author sets out to understand, then realize, his father's dream. He chases "the crazy idea that any inheritance might be worth claiming, no matter how small, no matter the cost." Though this is a bracingly original American adventure story, there's too much padding in this short, generously spaced book. Covington is an able observer and skilled writer, but his detours-especially to Idaho toward the end of the book-prevent cohesiveness.
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