Patrick Smith’s Florida Is A Land Remembered

Rick Smith tells his father, Patrick Smith’s, story of one of Florida’s most beloved works of literature, “A Land Remembered,” through visual storytelling featuring over 50 video clips, special visual and sound effects, music and more. Read the book and join in the discussion that follows moderated by Harry Coverston. About “A Land Remembered:” In this best-selling novel, Patrick Smith tells the story of three generations of the MacIveys, a Florida family who battle the hardships of the frontier to rise from a dirt-poor Cracker life to the wealth and standing of real estate tycoons. The story opens in 1858 when Tobias MacIvey arrives in the Florida wilderness to start a new life with his wife and infant son and ends two generations later in 1968 with Solomon MacIvey, who realizes that the land has been exploited far beyond human need. The sweeping story that emerges is a rich, rugged Florida history featuring a memorable cast of crusty, indomitable Crackers battling wild animals, rustlers, Confederate deserters, mosquitoes, starvation, hurricanes, and freezes to carve a kingdom out of the swamp. But their most formidable adversary turns out to be greed, including finally their own. Love and tenderness are here too: the hopes and passions of each new generation, friendships with the persecuted blacks and Indians, and respect for the land and its wildlife. A Land Remembered was the winner of the Florida Historical Society’s Tebeau Prize as the Most Outstanding Florida Historical Novel. Now in its 14th hardcover printing, it has been in print since 1984 and is also available in trade paperback. This event is funded by a Florida Humanities Community Project Grant, in partnership with Friends of Eau Gallie Public Library.