Year of the Gator

“'The Year of the Gator' is fiction at its best"—Dr. Robert Gold, St. Augustine Record. Read the full review: August 19, 2018.

Adrian Wright’s Year of the Gator begins when he buys Bubba’s by the Lake. Betting on lakefront property in Florida seems a sure thing. Adrian Wright hopes his purchase of Bubba’s by the Lake near Gainesville will finally make him money, maybe enough to live his sailing dream.
Wright is quickly recruited by powerful business leaders working with the University of Florida to develop a massive sports complex on conservation land near his restaurant and marina.
Activist Parker Greenberg is determined to stop the project and expose the land speculators hiding behind a lucrative blind trust. Wright joins the opposition and finds himself in the sights of powerful business leaders, a corrupt newspaper, a politically connected pastor, and the law.
Greenberg warns him of the dangers of vindictive girlfriends, unruly clients, trafficking, and other temptations that have ruined previous owners of Bubba’s by the Lake. As the business slides, Adrian embraces them all.
In a tangle of politics, money, and women, Adrian’s feeble facade of financial success crumbles and he faces consequences far worse than Florida concrete and asphalt. Love, friendship, deception, and tragedy are the finale of this Florida tale.

"The novel reads like Carl Hiassen.... It is a satiric tale as the author unmasks the forces in the game of economic development.”--Civic Media Center's Gainesville Iguana, October 2017

“The Year of the Gator” was featured at the Florida Historical Society annual meeting, and the Gulf South History & Humanities Conference, 2019.

For links to video readings, visit Larryschnell.com

Larry Schnell is a writer and journalist living in Van Hornesville near Cooperstown, New York. His first book, "Country People," is a collection of short fiction set in rural N.Y. "The Year of the Gator" explores the conflict between conservation and land development in Florida. As a reporter for the Gainesville Sun and the Florida Times-Union for eight years, Larry Schnell covered business, politics, criminal justice, environment, and higher education. He graduated from the State University of New York at Oneonta with bachelor's degree in English literature and from the University of Florida with a master's in mass communication. He has taught English, journalism, and writing for several colleges and the University of Florida. A lifelong sailor and licensed boat captain, Larry Schnell has sailed in Florida, the East Coast, the Bahamas, and Lake Ontario in his sailboat Intrada, and has published articles in boating magazines about his sailing experiences. Larry Schnell can be reached at larryschnellfl@yahoo.com