Anne Hull as a 6-year-old rode with her father as he recklessly drove through central Florida's then boundless rows of orange trees.
The smell of blossoms was "like God had knocked over a bottle of Ladies of Gardenia," Hull remembers in her luminous memoir "Through the Groves."
Hull, who won the Pulitzer Prize as part of a Washington Post team uncovering abuses at the Walter Reed veterans' hospital in Washington, D.C., recalls a free-range Tom Boy childhood in a lost paradise, teeming with snakes, alligators, orange trees and rakish kin and Florida eccentrics.
The too-brief book tells in spare, shimmering language a heart-breaking story of the pain family members inflict on their loved ones, along with aching interludes of joy.
A cast of outlandish relatives and acquaintances recall Flannery O'Connor's grotesques, with citrus-flavored raucous comedy and extravagant dreams.
Accompanying her story-telling, flamboyant father on his rounds overseeing orange fields covering 4,000 acres in central Florida's "The Ridge," the child experiences intense moments of natural beauty. The Florida sunlight when they emerge from the groves' darkness gives a vision of grace.
Hull's mother had the idea of her child sharing her husband's workdays. She thought her daughter's presence would alleviate his desire for drinking in neon-lit bars popping up along the rural roadways.
With a pistol and rattlesnake-bite kit in the glove compartment, he takes the little girl on wild rides through the orange groves, the trees full of the succulent fruit. They encounter black workers and foremen, ravaged by exposure to pesticides. She describes her father's benevolent treatment of the crews toiling in the brutal heat.
John Hull's family had been "orange people" for generations. Along with his theatrical personality, he's an old-school Southern gentleman and aspiring writer. He might have been a lawyer, newspaper editor or legislator. Unable to escape his family heritage, he increasingly succumbs to alcohol, eventually abandoning Hull and her mother and younger brother.
In another dazzling portrait, her mother, Vicki Hull, exudes feminine beauty and resolve. Brought to Florida as an adolescent after a childhood in Brooklyn, she struggles to support her family after her husband's abandonment. She's a determined career woman who loves fashion, writing and Broadway show tunes.
Hull in the second part of the book tells of her family's move to St. Petersburg, where they live with her maternal grandmother, whom Hull calls "Demie."
Like a big sister who never quite grew up, Demie shares with the adolescent Hull a love for pop music and sugary treats. While Hull's mother develops a career as an educator, Demie takes her granddaughter to adventures such as a Jackson 5 concert.
The book progresses with Hull's failure as a college student and brief, unhappy employment as a traveling salesperson for Revlon shampoo. She also gives awkward accounts of her emerging gay sexuality.
Her journalistic career begins when she lands a job as an assistant for legendary St. Petersburg Times sports columnist Hubert Mizell, whom Hull doesn't name. From there, Hull begins writing music album reviews, and feature stories, eventually receiving a Nieman Fellowship, which her mother proudly hails. Left for later books is her career with The Washington Post.
The book ends with the deaths of her father and mother. Sadly, Hull's attempts to reconcile with her father misfire. Yet he remains a guiding light, with a final evocation of those childhood days in the orange groves.
Comments