What do you think?
Rate this book
Night Shrimp Watcher: A Year and a Day in Key West
“These little essays owe their random character and brevity to The Pillow Book by Sei Shonagon, a Japanese court lady who wrote in about the year 1000 A.D. and to Essays in Idleness written about 1330 by Kenko, a Buddhist priest in Kyoto. Both works belong to the zuihitsu or formless mode and are classics in Japan....“It has been fourteen years since I left the busy, smoggy city and came to the little house in Sugarloaf. From the screened porch I can see past the great sea hibiscus tree to the seawall, dock and water. I watch sunrise from my bedroom and the morning stars shine in my window. The full moon rises above the casuarina trees to the East.We are also on a flyway. In autumn, the warblers stop at the sea hibiscus beside the water on their way to Central America. Monarch butterflies stop on their way to the Yucatan. In spring, the hawks that have spent the winter leave for the North again, and white-crested pigeons arrive from the Bahamas.We run our little boat out to the reef and float over small bright fish that dart through the coral heads. We swim off deserted beaches in the Gulf of Mexico.Life has a different rhythm here. It is slow and quiet and something else — but I can only feel its process. I cannot pin it down in static words.” So begins our rich and varied journey of “A Year and a Day in Key West” - Ramona Stewart’s love notes to the tropical island and its eccentric cast of characters she came to call her home. As her good friend John Mahoney would “Just another day in Paradise.”
Kindle Edition
Published December 28, 2018
About the author
Ramona Stewart
21 books1 followerRamona Stewart was best known for her 1946 novel Desert Town and the 1970 supernatural thriller The Possession of Joel Delaney, both of which were adapted into films.
Stewart was born in San Francisco, California in 1922, the daughter of James Oliver Stewart and Theresa Waugh. She grew up in Los Angeles with her father, a promoter of silver mines. She was of Irish descent. Stewart attended the University of Southern California from 1938 until 1941.
Her first published works were serialized stories for Collier's magazine. The first of them, first published as "Bitter Harvest" from November 24 to December 8, 1945, was quickly optioned by Hollywood producer Hal B. Wallis and became the basis of Desert Fury, a film noir by Lewis Allen starring Lizabeth Scott, John Hodiak, and Burt Lancaster. Stewart later developed the story into her first full-length novel with the title Desert Town.
After this early success, Stewart continued to submit material to Collier's, often coming-of-age stories that were popular in the slicks. She wouldn't publish another novel until 1962, The Stars Abide. This was followed by several other books sharing the themes she had established in her debut: odd love triangles, dysfunctional families, and more or less explicit homosexual relationships. At least one of those books, The Surprise Party Complex, dealing with disenchanted teenagers living in Hollywood, seems to have been turned into a spec script, but no film was produced.
After a detour toward the historical novel with Casey in 1968, Stewart finally settled as an author of thrillers with supernatural elements in the 1970s, starting with The Possession of Joel Delaney, which became her second title to be adapted into a film, directed by Waris Hussein and starring Shirley MacLaine and Perry King.
Stewart's final novel, The Nightmare Candidate, was published in 1980. For much of her adult life she resided with her husband in Key West, Florida, where she died in 2006.
While Desert Town has been marketed as an early example of pulp fiction, Stewart's early novels in particular have been praised for the depth hidden beneath the raunchy dialogue and the relationships between innocent females and almost clichéd males. Author and poet Sarah Key wrote that Stewart's female characters were "ahead of their time, often outcasts from conventional society, sometimes aided by supernatural forces".
Stewart's work is also noted for its early depictions of homosexual relationships. Noir expert Eddie Muller called the film adaptation of Desert Town "the gayest movie ever produced in Hollywood's golden era".
-Wikipedia
Stewart was born in San Francisco, California in 1922, the daughter of James Oliver Stewart and Theresa Waugh. She grew up in Los Angeles with her father, a promoter of silver mines. She was of Irish descent. Stewart attended the University of Southern California from 1938 until 1941.
Her first published works were serialized stories for Collier's magazine. The first of them, first published as "Bitter Harvest" from November 24 to December 8, 1945, was quickly optioned by Hollywood producer Hal B. Wallis and became the basis of Desert Fury, a film noir by Lewis Allen starring Lizabeth Scott, John Hodiak, and Burt Lancaster. Stewart later developed the story into her first full-length novel with the title Desert Town.
After this early success, Stewart continued to submit material to Collier's, often coming-of-age stories that were popular in the slicks. She wouldn't publish another novel until 1962, The Stars Abide. This was followed by several other books sharing the themes she had established in her debut: odd love triangles, dysfunctional families, and more or less explicit homosexual relationships. At least one of those books, The Surprise Party Complex, dealing with disenchanted teenagers living in Hollywood, seems to have been turned into a spec script, but no film was produced.
After a detour toward the historical novel with Casey in 1968, Stewart finally settled as an author of thrillers with supernatural elements in the 1970s, starting with The Possession of Joel Delaney, which became her second title to be adapted into a film, directed by Waris Hussein and starring Shirley MacLaine and Perry King.
Stewart's final novel, The Nightmare Candidate, was published in 1980. For much of her adult life she resided with her husband in Key West, Florida, where she died in 2006.
While Desert Town has been marketed as an early example of pulp fiction, Stewart's early novels in particular have been praised for the depth hidden beneath the raunchy dialogue and the relationships between innocent females and almost clichéd males. Author and poet Sarah Key wrote that Stewart's female characters were "ahead of their time, often outcasts from conventional society, sometimes aided by supernatural forces".
Stewart's work is also noted for its early depictions of homosexual relationships. Noir expert Eddie Muller called the film adaptation of Desert Town "the gayest movie ever produced in Hollywood's golden era".
-Wikipedia
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
No one has reviewed this book yet.