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Angel City
Smith, Patrick D.
190 pages, Hardcover
First published June 1, 1978
29 people are currently reading
247 people want to read
About the author
Patrick D. Smith
39 books210 followersPatrick 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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
August 1, 2014
Set in about 1967 - so, so recently - Angel City depicts life in a farming labor camp, specifically the life of Jay Teeter, his wife Cloma (pregnant with their third child), and his children Kristy (15) and Bennie (8). Unable any longer to sustain life on the family's hardscrabble farm in West Virginia, Teeter sells the farm for pennies and heads for better pickings (figuratively and literally) in south Florida. They spend most of their reserves keeping their 1960 minivan going till they get there, and after unsuccessfully searching for work for days, Jay signs on to work for Silas Creedy (a euphonious echo, I think, of Simon Legree). Their home is one room, eight feet square with only a door; they must eat slop from a central kitchen for dinner and buy food for their breakfast and lunch; and their camp is surrounded by barbed and razor wire and is always locked, except with the bus to the fields enters or leaves. Things get worse and worse until - no, I can't tell you.
There is no deep character development in Angel City,, but Jay and his new friend Cy - a black picker who has known no other life since he was born - become real and warm individuals, about whom you come to care a lot.
If this book had been set thirty years earlier, I would have accepted its premise easily. But Patrick Smith lived this life himself: his son told an audience recently that his father insinuated his way into a labor camp shortly after the family moved to Florida, so he could learn more about lives he had heard about. The Florida Smith portrayed in A Land Remembered, though moving through to the tawdry civilization of today, demonstrated moral strength and nobility of character along the way. In this book, the good are bound by filth and evil, not of their making but from which they cannot escape on their own.
There is no deep character development in Angel City,, but Jay and his new friend Cy - a black picker who has known no other life since he was born - become real and warm individuals, about whom you come to care a lot.
If this book had been set thirty years earlier, I would have accepted its premise easily. But Patrick Smith lived this life himself: his son told an audience recently that his father insinuated his way into a labor camp shortly after the family moved to Florida, so he could learn more about lives he had heard about. The Florida Smith portrayed in A Land Remembered, though moving through to the tawdry civilization of today, demonstrated moral strength and nobility of character along the way. In this book, the good are bound by filth and evil, not of their making but from which they cannot escape on their own.
October 15, 2016
A horrifyingly depressing account of just how evil humans can be to each other, and how hopeless people can feel trapped in the cycle of migrant labor and labor camps that are more like indentured servitude. Set in the 1970s.
March 15, 2024
Written as an expose of the migrant labor camps in Florida, this is quite a depressing book. It is hard to believe that these conditions existed through 1970. Patrick Smith is the author of A Land Remembered, one of my favorite books and is on my to be reread list.
December 26, 2024
Brutally depressing; it felt at times surprisingly agonizing for such a short book. A dark slice of fairly recent Floridy history; the author apparently based the story on real events and "physical research" into the grim realities of 1970s migrant camps.
June 9, 2019
Fast read. Depressing. It felt like a short, slightly more modern Grapes of Wrath. It's sad that humans treat other humans in such despicable ways.
November 13, 2016
Very good but sad
Finished in two days, hoping for a different ending . That could be another book in and of itself. Love Patrick's stories and ready for another if I haven't already read then ALL
Finished in two days, hoping for a different ending . That could be another book in and of itself. Love Patrick's stories and ready for another if I haven't already read then ALL
May 3, 2019
I love this author. This was an incredibly stressful book that I took on vacation. The ending was not as complete as I puke liked for it to be. I really wanted to know what happened. It really opened my eyes to what happened in these work camps.
June 4, 2025
a historical fiction novel about migrant farm workers in Florida. shows the depths of despair of capitalism in a place close to home. also shows the ability of workers to band together and overcome their shortcomings to fight together!
August 12, 2022
I remember seeing the movie when I was a child and have thought of it all of these years. I just found out that it was originally a book. It was a quick and easy read yet powerful. I know that he spent time in migrant worker camp to lend his book more authenticity. I found the hardship endured by the characters to be compelling and their characters relatable and likable. I wonder how true the events are. This is listed as historical fiction. Would hate to think camps like these actually exist. Does make you rethink your produce purchases.
February 26, 2018
Heartbreaking story of a West Virginia moving to Florida to make a better life. They find themselves enslaved in a migrant workers camp. Even more interesting is the author, surprised that these camps still existed in the 1970s, grew a beard, wore scruffy clothes and joined the migrants. No one suspected that the quiet man was actually a writer. His expose' of these camps served its purpose to bring about change.
November 5, 2018
A brutal, but important book. I could not read it fast, even though it is relatively short, because it takes an emotional toll. I had never heard of Patrick Smith before moving to Florida, but this book should be better known. In particular, people from Appalachia would find this one worth picking up, since it begins in West Virginia. If you find the subject interesting (exploitation of agricultural workers), don't hesitate to read this fictional account.
July 21, 2025
Very dark and sad book by the author of A Land Remembered (one of my favorite books). It reads somewhat like a Florida version of the Grapes of Wrath and chronicles the harrowing experience of the Teeter family as they leave their home in the West Virginia mountains for any even harder life as migrant fruit pickers in Florida. It’s hard to believe conditions were like that up until the early 1970’s. If you’re a fan of fiction with a Florida background give it a read.
April 7, 2020
This is a very sad book from start to finish (almost) but one that is hard to put down. I just kept hoping things would get better for the labor camp family. I know things like this actually happened but it is hard to fathom. These poor creatures were nothing more than slaves and living conditions deplorable.
January 29, 2023
Very hard book to finish. unfortunately it s the truth about the Florida migrant labor camps.
I gave the book a 4 stars, because it is real and truthful, but very hartbreaking and hopeless situation in the migrant labor camps. Needless to say it's not a book you can enjoy reading and feel good about it when finished.
I gave the book a 4 stars, because it is real and truthful, but very hartbreaking and hopeless situation in the migrant labor camps. Needless to say it's not a book you can enjoy reading and feel good about it when finished.
May 9, 2020
Sad and very scary to realize that this was going on as late as the 70’s. Probably still going on someplace still.
February 18, 2022
This stark novel based on the author's personal experiences working in migrant farming camps in Florida in the '70s is horrific but so important.
August 28, 2023
This is one of the most depressing books I’ve ever read. It was good but depressing. Thankfully a very quick read but has an ending that is open ended and not very concise.
June 29, 2024
Excellent
Just wish the ending wasn’t so rushed
Just wish the ending wasn’t so rushed
February 1, 2025
Great story, but seemed unfinished. I was left hanging and wondering about the characters and their outcome.
May 24, 2025
Very sad story. Migrant labor camps. Abusive practices.
July 11, 2023
This is one of the saddest stories I have ever read. Creepy was so evil. Willing to use people at all costs to line his pockets. Jared Teeter was naive and it cost him so much. I did enjoy the relationship he had with Cy. This was a really good read.
April 27, 2014
Angel City is about a man who thinks he’s taking his family from financial ruin to new hope, in Florida, but ends up taking them into a labor camp from which there’s no escape. Most of us probably do not often think of such places, where one is required to pay rent and expenses, which always exceed the possibility of earning income.
This book set in the 60’s, near Homestead Florida, is based on Patrick Smith's (Author of A Land Remembered and many other books) actually, intentionally placing himself into a camp like this. It’s not known whether the one he was in was really as bad as this, but apparently laws were enacted to improve conditions in these camps as a result of this book.
I have personally spoken to a man who described growing up in such conditions on a plantation in rural Georgia in the 30s.
I know that such places have been located near where I live in Florida even recently. This one, Angel City, is more extreme than the one my friend says he grew up in in rural Georgia in the 30s, and hopefully is more extreme than any now, because it has locks, fences, and other means of imprisonment. And the staff people beat and kill people who try to leave. But I’m not sure this situation is really non-existent now.
A movie was also made as the result of this book, which can be found on UTube, Amazon and other places.
One reviewer called it “depressing.” Well, one can concentrate only happy books, but there are a lot of important historical issues that it’s important to understand. It’s a well-written story about an issue that did, and probably does exist.
This book set in the 60’s, near Homestead Florida, is based on Patrick Smith's (Author of A Land Remembered and many other books) actually, intentionally placing himself into a camp like this. It’s not known whether the one he was in was really as bad as this, but apparently laws were enacted to improve conditions in these camps as a result of this book.
I have personally spoken to a man who described growing up in such conditions on a plantation in rural Georgia in the 30s.
I know that such places have been located near where I live in Florida even recently. This one, Angel City, is more extreme than the one my friend says he grew up in in rural Georgia in the 30s, and hopefully is more extreme than any now, because it has locks, fences, and other means of imprisonment. And the staff people beat and kill people who try to leave. But I’m not sure this situation is really non-existent now.
A movie was also made as the result of this book, which can be found on UTube, Amazon and other places.
One reviewer called it “depressing.” Well, one can concentrate only happy books, but there are a lot of important historical issues that it’s important to understand. It’s a well-written story about an issue that did, and probably does exist.
January 21, 2016
Couldn't put it down!
This book is a must read. It wraps you in immediately. I didn't want it to end. Great character development.
This book is a must read. It wraps you in immediately. I didn't want it to end. Great character development.
November 23, 2009
depressing
Read
October 6, 2018A very well written, sad story about Florida's migrant camps. The author lived for a time in the camps and the book brought about some positive change.
Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews