The Flamingo Rising

Never before (and in all likelihood never again) have I wished, powerfully wished, to be an adopted Korean boy in Florida in the '60s.

I'm being facetious. This is an incredible book. A fucking incredible book. There are not enough stars in this website's rating system, nor expletives in this language I possess, to adequately represent the quality of an outlier like this.

This is the only book I've ever read that comes close to inducing that feeling of true human contentment and happiness. That feeling that you don't get all the time, or even very often, where you're content in your situation as a human being: every misery, every small happiness, every soaring love, every disappointing drunken fuck, smiles shared with strangers, one of show more the times you got your nose broken for being a smart-arse, the only-sort-of-serious thought in the back of your mind that maybe the multiverse is real and this is the reality where you get to live forever, the smell of your feet after a day's work, the overdue phone bill; all of it. Everything small, everything enormous, every experience, feeling, an thought that culminates in you being the you that you are in the particular moment that this feeling comes over you; the feeling of weird-serene contentment in just having been granted the obscenely small chance to be alive as the particular human being you are.

This is the happiest book I've ever read. It made me cry on a crowded train on my way to work this morning too, when I'm the sort of person that loses relationships for being completely emotionally unavailable.

The three weeks I spent in Jacksonville, Florida, were three of the worst weeks of what has often been a pretty terrible life. I bought this book as part of my attempt to read a novel set in every place I've ever been* (*according to a weird non-specific criteria-feeling I have about what qualifies and what doesn't), and this was the only one that set in the area that didn't sound terrifyingly shit-house. And I'm sincerely glad that I went through those terrible three weeks, because in the end they led me to this book.

I'm not going to talk about a thing to do with the plot, or anything about it at all. Flamingo Rising is a feeling. It's a feeling you get to have for 320 pages. You will know a group of people and a place and a time, and you'll wish you were there, like I wish I was there.

This is not a novel, this is a home. show less

THE FLAMINGO RISING (1997) is my third Larry Baker book, but was, I think, his first novel, and a resounding success, adapted to the small screen as a Hallmark Hall of Fame movie in 2001. It is, in short, a very long coming-of-age story narrated by Abraham Isaac "Izzy" Lee, a Korean-American adopted as a baby by Hubert Lee, a Korean War veteran who came from a wealthy Southern family. Izzy also has a sister, the same age, adopted at the same time from the same place. He is looking back at how he and his sister grew up in rooms built inside the largest drive-in movie screen (The Flamingo) in the country near St Augustine, Florida, the brain child of his father. Their mom is a college teacher. The siblings are both very intelligent, home show more educated by their parents for ten years before going to Catholic school. Most of the narrative takes place in the mid-sixties sixties as the two turn 15 and 16. Izzy's love for Grace, the daughter of the director of the funeral home across the highway from the Flamingo gets a lot of ink, as does the lead up to and the fireworks (literally) surrounding his actual sexual initiation - NOT with Grace. So yeah, if you came of age in the sixties, during the Vietnam War and the protests, the music, the movies and that whole era of cultural upheaval, you'll probably relate. I did. And I can also see how it would work as a sweet Hallmark movie, since all of the characters are innately "good" people. And there is a large cast of fully realized characters. My wife is reading the book now, maybe we will search out the movie and watch it together. A good story. A sweet one. Very Hallmark.

P.S. I really loved Baker's newest novel, TELL IT SLANT (2025). It might be his best yet.

- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, BOOKLOVER show less

I was recommended this book by a good friend.

I will say this first. I have never read a book like The Flaming Rising by Larry Baker and I've read a lot. This book is hard to describe. The best I can do is that the protagonist and narrator is Abraham, the adopted Korean son, of a drive-in theater Florida native. We find that later in life, Abraham is a lover a photography. To me, the book is written in a series of photographs-- snap shots in time that are focused around his early teen years, his relationship with his family (mostly focusing on his crazy father). We are introduced also to Turner West, who owns the funeral home down the road and the feud between Abraham's father and Turner. Of course to make things more difficult, Abraham show more falls in love with West's daughter, Grace.

This book is well written. Some of the decisions as to how it was written are not as clear until the end. I will be upfront about how this is not my type of book. The characters are both fascinating and horrifying at the same time. Alice and Polly are two additions halfway in the book. Baker takes a great risk in writing this book the way he has. In many ways, it pays off. His descriptions are lush and many times poignant. Writers are often taught, write what you know. Many times, I would think that this was a true autobiography because that is the way it felt to me and usually can be quite difficult for writers to accomplish.

That said, I wonder why it wasn't an autobiography. I believe that Baker's own life experiences as a drive-in owner, would have fascinated me. I kept wanting the story to be real, because that's what it felt like. Personally, I felt that it lost something when I realized it was fiction. I know that's a personal opinion, rather than a fault of the writing. I also had a hard time staying interested in the novel because at the end of each chapter, we get a secret revealed but then the actual story of that secret is not told until several chapters later. For me, this didn't work.

That said, this is a tremendously creative and many times beautifully written novel, and the praise it has gotten is well deserved. I think in the end, this just was not my kind of novel, but that's okay. It was worth reading. show less

Started out gangbusters, lots of interesting characters & a unique setting (world's largest drive in movie screen), but got bogged down after first 100 pages or so. Too much forshadowing of final cataclysmic event - just get on with it!
Read 3/2000

Published in 1997, this book was given to me by a friend. Reminiscent in more than location, of the more recent book by Laura Lee Smith, Heart of Palm, The Flamingo Rising is set on the Atlantic Coast near St. Augustine . The action in this book centers on the story of a family that owns and runs a drive in movie theater located on the beach. Eccentric parents, two adopted children and an extended family of usual workers and helpers live in and manage the theater. Across the road and in the shadow of the big screen is another man's dream, his funeral home that he runs with his six sons and a daughter. Not a good combination for congenial neighbor relations. Many love stories play out in this book that is told in reflection by the show more adopted son of the theater owner; first love, lost love, love spawned by loneliness. Very good read. More a 3.75 than a 3. show less

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed reading Flamingo Rising by Larry Baker. I finished it within two days & felt peaceful about the ending. Every once in awhile I like reading a book that helps me leave the real world behind.

I won this book and reviewed it for a small press magazine. A good, solid tale.