Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #222698 in Books
• Published on: 1993-10
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 279 pages

From Library Journal
A commercial fisherman, marijuana smuggler, and alligator hunter and poacher, Totch is a native son of Florida's southwesternmost coast, the Ten Thousand Islands. His natural-style storytelling enlivens his and his family's history of eking out a living on the edge of the Everglades. These memoirs--which begin with his pioneer grandparents in 1880, proceed to his childhood in the 1920s, and end up in the 1990s--give us a glimpse of a hard life of poverty and pride, honesty and crime. Totch lives by his own rules; he doesn't glorify or excuse his lifestyle but lays it out for us so that we can understand the strength it takes to survive on the edge. Recommended for folklore, ecology, and Florida history collections.
- Susan Hamburger, Univ. of Virginia Lib., Charlottesville
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
The colorful recollections of an Everglades old-timer, Loren "Totch" Brown, whose father was a moonshiner and who, himself, hunted alligators and smuggled marijuana. It was a hardscrabble life--particularly when it involved farming or fishing on the shell islands. Then again, it was a wonderful life; Totch always had a great time, it seems, hiring out to Hollywood and getting to know Peter Falk and Burl Ives, or running a charter and watching Richard Nixon fall from the boat and Ted Simmons stop to play ball with local school children. Totch was a principal source for Peter Matthiessen's 1990 Everglades novel, Killing Mister Watson, and Matthiessen contributes a heartfelt introduction. John Mort

Customer Reviews

A view into the past...
Totch is a fascinating book written in a natural writer's style illustrating how it really was down in the islands.The chapters not only offer us the life of Totch Brown but share photos and history unmatched in any other source I have found. Any reader interested in Florida history and/or anyone who was mesmerized by Peter Matthiessen's trilogy (Killing Mister Watson, Lost Man's River, and Bone by Bone) will revel in this book's information. The photographs add so much to the story offering a glimpse at this rather mysterious corner of Southwest Florida (where else, for example, can one see a photo of Ted Smallwood's store as it looked at the turn of the century?). I read it cover to cover without putting it down, and I turn to it often for Florida history/environmental/sociology information. A great find for any lover of Florida history! Totch offers us all a real glimpse into the lives and lore of inordinately tough, brave people who were real pioneers in a little known and enigmatic part of America.

A wonderful account of yesterday's Everglades & its people!
Peter Matthiessen, author of "Killing Mr. Watson," and a master in is on right, is definitely on the mark in describing Loren G. "Totch" Brown as "a natural-born story-teller." A wonderful account of yesterday's Everglades & its people, "Totch, A life in the Everglades" is so colorful and entertaining you'll almost feel the need to keep the mosquito repellent handy while reading it.

Totch- Saint or Devil?
Totch was a devil most of his life, even by his own standards. It is interesting that he repented and claims to have tried to save the very same Everglades that he harvested most of his life. I do understand the reasons. My family is from Everglades City and did the very same things. They, however, have not tried to explain their way of life away and become one of the Park Service's mouthpieces. The book gives an accurate and in depth look at life as it was in a remote and still wild area of America.