Water Down — William Williamson

When local Matecumbe author, Henry Roberts, wakes up he feels two sensations. A hangover and soreness on the side of his face courtesy of his younger brother, Corky, who hitchhiked from North Florida barging into Henry's life unexpectedly and sucker punching him when he opened the door. Corky was furious because their mother confided to him two weeks earlier they share the same biological father, Jake, a hard-living shrimper who lives in Key West. Corky's revelation is news to Henry. Their mother always told Henry, Corky was the product of a one-night stand eighteen years ago after she left Jake and moved away from the Keys.


Out in the living room, Henry finds Corky passed out on a sleeping bag on the floor and Cat, a young woman Corky met yesterday in Key Largo crashed on the couch. It looks like a road trip is the order of the day. Henry promised he would take them to Key West where they can find or lose themselves in tropical decadence like many others before them, who have ventured to the southernmost island at the end of the road.


Not relishing telling Finee, Henry's Cuban girlfriend of three years his plans for the day, driving Corky who she's never met and Cat, a complete stranger to Key West, they stop at the restaurant where Finee works to hear she went home feeling ill. After breakfast, he calls the house she shares with two roommates but she doesn't answer the phone. Henry leaves a message telling her he's going to see Jake in Key West but conveniently omits why he is going there or who he is taking with him.


There are many things to see, learn, absorb and discover on a trip down the necklace of islands making up the Florida Keys. For Henry, wrestling with the direction of his second novel, Corky searching for answers from a father he never knew and Cat, seeking an adventurous new life, Key West could be salvation or the anti-Christ in paradise.