Allapattah

by Patrick D. Smith

Twenty-five-year-old Seminole Toby Tiger lives in despair in the Florida Everglades. He loves the land and everything that exists in the natural the deer and egrets, turtles and herons, cypress trees and sawgrass, ponds and marshes, and, most of all, allapattah, the crocodile. He watches helplessly as the white man imposes his will on the Seminoles, forcing them either to conform or to eke out a living wrestling alligators and carving trinkets for tourists. According to Toby, the whites "destroy all that they touch." Toby refuses to bend to the white man's will and fights back the only way he knows how. He becomes allapattah, a creature that earns his respect and protection.

Genres: Fiction, Book Club, Historical Fiction, Native American

202 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 13, 2012

About the author

Patrick Smith is a 1999 inductee into the Florida Artists Hall of Fame, the highest and most prestigious cultural honor that can be bestowed upon an individual by the State of Florida.
In May 2002 Smith was the recipient of the Florida Historical Society’s Fay Schweim Award as the “Greatest Living Floridian.” The one-time-only award was established to honor the one individual who has contributed the most to Florida in recent history. Smith was cited for the impact his novels have made on Floridians, both natives and newcomers to the state, and for the worldwide acclaim he has received.

Smith has been nominated three times for the Pulitzer Prize, in 1973 for Forever Island, which was a 1974 selection of the Reader’s Digest Condensed Book Club and has been published in 46 countries; in 1978 for Angel City, which was produced as a “Movie of the Week” for the CBS television network and has aired worldwide; and in 1984 for A Land Remembered, which was an Editors’ Choice selection of the New York Times Book Review. In the 2001 The Best of Florida statewide poll taken by Florida Monthly magazine, A Land Remembered was ranked #1 Best Florida Book. The novel also ranked #1 in all the polls since then. Smith’s lifetime work was nominated for the 1985 Nobel Prize for Literature, and since then he has received five additional nominations.

In 2008 he was honored with a Literary Heritage Award at the 1st Annual Heritage Book Festival in St Augustine. FLorida's Secretary of State Kurt Browning presented the award.

In 1995 Patrick Smith was elected by The Southern Academy of Letters, Arts and Science for its highest literary award, The Order of the South. Previous recipients include Eudora Welty, James Dickey, and Reynolds Price. In 1996 he was named a Florida Ambassador of the Arts, an honor given each year by the state of Florida to someone who has made significant contributions to Florida's cultural growth. In 1999 Smith was inducted into the Florida Artists Hall of Fame, which is the highest and most prestigious cultural honor the state bestows upon an individual artist. Prior inductees include writers Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, Zora Neale Hurston, and Ernest Hemingway.

In October 1990 he received the University of Mississippi’s Distinguished Alumni Award and was inducted into the University’s Alumni Hall of Fame. In 1997, the Florida Historical Society created a new annual award, the Patrick D. Smith Florida Literature Award, in his honor.

Thousands of people of all ages have enjoyed his books and his talks. With his new DVD, A Sense of Place, you can spend an intimate hour with this soft-spoken author and gain an insight into the creative processes that resulted in his beloved books.

Patrick lives in Merritt Island, Florida with his wife Iris and his beloved cats.

Reviews

[Leona Murphy McKinney · Rating 3 out of 5]

A disappointment

After reading A Land Remembered, this one was a disappointment. It didn’t have the sweeping feel or the grand visual descriptions of Land Remembered. If I’d read this book first, I may have liked it better.

[Brent · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good not great story. I was disappointed in the ending. Maybe would have liked the book more had I not read it back to back with Forever Island. The 2 stories are very similar.

[Savana · Rating 4 out of 5]

The only thing keeping this from a five star review is an unfortunate bias—I read it after A Land Remembered, which is easily one of my top five books of all time. Still, as a huge fan of Patrick Smith, I immensely enjoyed this book (my kindle did not give a page count, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this is classified as a novella).

Smith transports the reader to a forgotten Florida, a place that no longer exists no matter how much Toby Tiger wishes it to. This book is filled with poignant lines, and the central metaphor of Toby as a crocodile is heartbreakingly beautiful. I know some readers complain of Smith’s unnatural dialogue, but I personally feel that it fits in with his stories. Smith’s books are more about the feeling of the story and characters rather than an attempt at accurate reality. This book is about the truth of the words spoken, not whether or not people actually speak that way.

For fans of old Florida novels, this is a must read. The only way you’ll be disappointed is if you read it after the masterpiece that is a Land Remembered. If you haven’t read that one, start with Allapattah and then A Land Remembered.

[Lacey Bourne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this one. It’s been years since I’ve read Land Remembered, so I don’t have that in recent memory to compare it to. But this was good as well. His writing is to the point without a bunch of flowery language but yet the story is descriptive enough that I could picture it all.

Some of my girls are studying Florida History for homeschool, so this was an interesting read for me. We had recently learned about the Seminoles, their wars and some of their warriors. It was cool to hear some of this info mentioned in the book.

Patrick D Smith’s books always stick out in my mind even years later. This one will stick with me, too.

[Gail Turner · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is not for everyone. Patrick Smith’s books based on Florida history have grabbed me. Allapattah is the Seminole word for crocodile, the basis for this fable of Florida’s disappearing past. While the world moves forward, Toby Tiger is hanging on to his tribe’s traditions as tightly as he can, doing everything in his power to preserve the old ways. This book reaches into Florida’s evolving history - a lesson seemingly being ignored today.

[Beth · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have recently visited the Everglades and the Seminole Museum, so it was neat to read this book and hear about the places, ecosystems, and some of the Seminole culture that I have been seeing and hearing about. Toby Tiger tries to cling to the old way of life which he sees becoming more and more out of reach.

[marie tyre · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought this was probably an accurate account of the Seminole lifestyle (in the Everglades) in the early 1900 century. I was interested in learning their customs and traditions but they endured so much mistreatment, and that was heartbreaking. Again, it was an interesting read but very sad to say the least.

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

3 1/2 stars. Good read but written very simply and straight forward in a matter of fact kind of way that wasn’t bad but not what I was expecting from this author. Quick read about the Everglades from the perspective of a Seminole Indian who’s perspective is that the white man destroys everything that he touches with examples of how and why. He’s not totally wrong.

[Brandon Vicinus · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you’re looking for the next “A Land Remembered” this isn’t it. This was a good read, but the story is very simple, short, and predictable a bit. It is still good, it’s probably an accurate depiction of Seminole life in early FL. Interesting to say the least, but not going to make you call your friends up to let them know this is a must read.

[Taylor Costa · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. I wish it was longer! Patrick D. Smith is probably my favorite author. He really hits home with the old florida stuff. The over development in florida is sickening and his books really hit the heart. The sad story of Toby Tiger and how he was done wrong will always resonate with me

[Eileen Morilleau · Rating 4 out of 5]

The end of a time

Interesting but tragic recount of the end of a time when Seminole Indians could roam the marshes freely and live with the land. Toby becomes one of the "Last of the Mohicans", sad plight of the Indian people.

[Martha Steele · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am rounding this up due to an excellent performance on the audio book by Jim Seybert. The portrayal of the loss native people feel as their way of life vanishes inch by inch in the modern world is heartbreaking.

[Carole Beaubien · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Are the good times really over for good???”

A beautifully written story about love, family, & loss. They call it “progress”, but Floridians call it death: of the Seminole & old Florida.

[Warren Moore · Rating 5 out of 5]

A tragic story about the life and dramatic times of one who lived with and was part of the land. A stark revelation of the folly of unchecked development and it's effects upon the land and humanity.

[Teresa Kartheiser · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this author. Wonderfully sad book.

[Debbie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not nearly as good as The Land Remembered.

[Karolina Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really had a hard time with this story. I found Toby Tiger to be very juvenile. And the fact that he was 25 years old and some of the pranks he pulled seemed like something a 14 year old would do. I love the concern that he had for his grandfather, but I don’t understand his reaction to his son’s death. There seemed be no grieving there. I also don’t understand why he left his wife alone so often. I also found the ending to be somewhat bizarre and his wife’s reaction to his leaving.

[Mixon Trammell · Rating 4 out of 5]

While a very good read, this book is a heartbreaking tale of a man born in the wrong time.

[amy beck · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this book. I love the writing and the description of Florida.

[Lynda Huffman · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5. Written by the author of one of my very favorite books, A Land Remembered, this is a sad and sobering look at how “progress” affected the land, the animals and especially the Seminole people.

[Tony · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very depressing book but probably very true about how the Seminole Indians have been treated in Southern Florida and the Everglades.

I found many typographical errors in the book.

[Gordon Sill · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good book about the Seminole Native Americans in the Everglades. Not as good as A land remembered and the ending was very sad and disappointing. Still good though.

[Kary · Rating 3 out of 5]

written in very calm deliberate wording. Very sad the Indian tale and how history evolved in the Florida Everglades and for that matter everywhere. Read for our Women Wine & Words book club recommended by Lesleigh Howard Zeno