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State of Paradise

Book by Laura van den Berg · 2 quotes · Florida, Change, Books

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State of Paradise Quotes

“My husband is nervous about a lot of things down here, like the monstrous size of the fire ants and the quality of the gasoline, because half the time the gas stations are out, the nozzles bundled up in black garbage bags, or the credit card readers don't work or the attendant is a shirtless man with a hip flask tucked into the waistband of his shorts. I keep trying to explain that this is a place with its own laws.”

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“A place outside time. This is the phrase I overhear my husband using as he tries to describe Florida to his father over the phone. His father lives in a high-rise condo in New Jersey, and he is concerned that we are still down here. On the news, there is constant talk about Florida’s post-pandemic spiral. Speculation about whether the state is experiencing an ecological and spiritual succession. There is talk about militias creeping out of the swamp. There is talk of vandals. There is talk of literal highway robbery. (Our Cro-Magnon governor denies any of this is happening, even though there are reports that some of these forces are amassing in his name.) For the time being, I can ghostwrite my books and shop specials at the grocery and take my niece to the water park, but no one knows how much longer this version of our world will last. “Sometimes I can’t believe a place like this exists,” my husband says as we speed down a gleaming white limestone road that cuts through a palm forest, or ride an airboat around a swollen lake. Florida has a past, as all places do, but these days everyone is uncertain about its future.”

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