Double Exposure a Work of Art

Sitting down to read Michael Lister's Double Exposure, which recently received the Florida Book Awards Bronze Medal for General Fiction, I expected a crime novel so well written it bridges the gap between popular fiction, where crime novels are usually categorized, and literary fiction. What I got was a fantastically penned work of literature that happens to focus on crime.

The story centers on Remington James, who returns to North Florida to take over the family business, a gun and pawn shop, following the death of his father.

Photography, once a hobby he pursued purely for the love of capturing nature's beauty, is now only an afterthought for Remington, an ad agency executive. His choice of career over vocation has led to resentment and depression that have caused his wife, Heather, to separate from him.

Back at home in the woods that make up a majority of his family's property, Remington's love for photographing all things natural is rekindled, thanks in part to his reunion with his dying mother, Remington's original muse. The isolation also causes him to reevaluate his relationship with Heather. Hoping to capture an image of a Florida panther, an endangered species the locals claim does not inhabit the Apalachicola River Basin, Remington sets up motion-activated cameras near ponds and other spots where the predatory cats might stop for water. Unfortunately, his camera instead captures images of a murder in horrifying frame by frame detail.

Remington soon becomes the prey of the sadistic killer and his team of hunters, who seem all too familiar with the surrounding swamplands, as they track him, trying to surround and smother him as they would wild game. Unsure whether to head to the river that flows through the woods and follow its banks to possible freedom or to circle back to his truck, risking a face-to-face encounter with the hunter determined to prevent him from ever leaving the woods, Remington must hone his survival instincts if he is to reach his goals of mending his damaged relationship and returning to his mother's side before it's too late.

Lister's style of prose is poetic. His repeated use of alliteration evokes the tension that James is experiencing as he tries to elude the hunters' dogs:
Barks. Bays. Yelps. Howls.
Closer now. Much.
The pawn shop had been a supporter of the sheriff's K-9 unit since its existence, and Remington had watched several tactical tracking exercises over the years. He pictures what is taking place not far behind him.
Big black snouts on the ground.
Ears and jowls flapping, drool dangling.
Nearly a yard tall, weight of an adult woman.
Running.
Remington's scent.
Relentless.

Or as he faces imminent death as bullets fly all around him:
Rounds continue to ricochet around him, but he doesn't move. He can't.
Numb.
Despondent.
Lost.
He can't think, can't move, can't—what?
Death.
Despair.
Distance.

The writing is so dramatic that it comes as no surprise that one of Lister's colleagues at Gulf Coast Community College, where Lister teaches classes in religion and writing, adapted Double Exposure into a play.

This book is a work of art and well deserving of its award. As far as its classification goes, it could be called literature, general fiction, even crime fiction. At a scant 204 pages, it could also be considered prose poetry. Whatever you call it, Double Exposure is a great read.

by Edward Irvin.

Michael Lister's DOUBLE EXPOSURE Wins Florida Book Award

North Florida Author Michael Lister’s “Double Exposure” won a Bronze Medal for General Fiction in the 2009 Florida Book Awards.

The Florida Book Awards –the nation’s most comprehensive state book awards program– was established in 2006 to recognize, honor, and celebrate the best Florida literature published the previous year. It is coordinated by The Florida State University Libraries, and co-sponsored by the Florida Center for the Book, State Library and Archives of Florida, Florida Historical Society, Florida Humanities Council, Florida Literary Arts Coalition, Florida Library Association, “Just Read, Florida!,” Florida Family Literacy Initiative, the Program in American and Florida Studies at Florida State University, Florida Reading Association, Florida Association for Media in Education, Florida Center for the Literary Arts, the Friends of FSU Libraries, and Florida Chapter of the Mystery Writers of America.

“This is a real honor,” Lister said. “I’m a Florida writer. Florida is the landscape I’m painting with my palette of words, my actual and spiritual home, so to win a Florida Book Award is extremely gratifying. And of all my books, “Double Exposure” is the one most centered in this land. It’s my love letter to wild North Florida.”

Following his dad’s death, Remington James returns to the small North Florida town where he grew up to assume his father’s life—taking care of his dying mother and running the local gun and pawn shop.

Picking up a camera again after a long hiatus, Remington returns to his first love, pursuing in earnest his lifelong dream of becoming a wildlife photographer.

One fateful fall evening, as the sun sinks and the darkness expands, Remington ventures deep into the river swamp to try out some new equipment and check his camera traps.

Encountering the kind of wildlife that made him want to be a photographer in the first place, Remington gets some of the best shots of his life, but he’s about to happen upon the most dangerous animal of all—A feral, patient, sociopath who wants Remington dead.

While checking his camera traps, scanning the eerie images of overexposed deer and bats and foxes, Remington comes across the most haunting images of his life — the frame-by-frame capture of a shocking crime.

By exposing the criminal, Remington has exposed himself to danger, even possible extinction. Hunted like an animal, by the predator and his psychotic friends, Remington must do two things: make it through the night and make it to the river — and the odds of doing either are slim to none.

Lyrical, literary, and told in poetic photographic impressions, Double Exposure is filled with far more than just exciting adventure and suspense. It’s a meditation on life and death and art and meaning you won’t soon forget.

This is the fourth year of competitions in the Florida Book Awards, which has seven categories for books published in 2009. “The culture of books in the Sunshine State continues to prosper,” notes FBA Director Wayne A. Wiegand. “These FBA winners clearly prove it.”

Submissions were read by seven juries of three members each nominated from across the state by cosponsoring organizations. Jurors were authorized to select up to five medalists in each of the seven categories.

“From the very beginning, “Double Exposure” has been a very special book for me,” Lister said. “So many wonderful things have and continue to happen with it—from critics and readers responses to environmental education and conservation efforts to the brilliant play director Jason Hedden produced to foreign sales to feature film interest. I’m so very grateful.”

When asked why “Double Exposure” was submitted in the general instead of popular fiction category, Lister said, “It’s true, “Double Exposure” is a literary thriller that can be classified broadly as crime fiction, but my publisher and I thought that by submitting the book in the general fiction category we were letting it stand on its literary merits.”

In his introduction to “Double Exposure,” #1 New York Times Besteslling Author, Michael Connelly, calls the book “Elegiac, like a two-hundred page poem, with words that skip on the waters of the imagination like well-polished stones.”

Lister and the other winners will be recognized at a banquet during the Florida Library Association Conference Banquet on April 8 in Orlando.

For more information about Michael Lister or his books, go to www.MichaelLister.com