It's weird that this is good enough to be one of David Foster Wallace's favorite books, but it's not good enough for me. It's decently written, and the beginning and ending are both great, largely because those are the only sections that prominently feature an alligator. But the middle is full of boring characters with boring backstories that don't go anywhere. ( )

Are you fascinated by pulp novels from many years ago? If so, I recommend this book to you. I bought it at the neighbourhood drug store when I was 12 or 13 years old and read it with spellbound amazement. I live nowhere near the Gulf Coast, and I am not afraid of alligators. Probably because I have never seen a live alligator. The real life experience would probably teach me quite quickly to change my tune.
So what really amazed me was the alligator-hunting team and the other characters in the cast. Just like every society, there are the self-righteous and there are the decadent low-lifes. The biggest mistake one can make is to assume that these groups are mutually exclusive of each other. The fact is that they are not. A good genre author can make people interesting enough to rise above their stereotypes and turn into something more alive.
It's true that this is nowhere near Nobel Prize material, but somehwere I read the quote of a famous author who said that if you really want to find out the most about a society, don't read the high-toned literature of the ivory tower, but rather, read the mundane pulp literature showing a much closer picture of the life of the masses. I better get an exact quote on that, because I am probably way off the mark in that reconstruction, not to mention, totally out of context.
I tried to find out more about Shelley Katz, and was successful in tracking down a couple of other titles, but I would recommend this one as a starter in order to try to do a very effective time warp back about 35 years into the past.
As Moby Dick was to Ahab, so the Alligator in this book is to the crew of people eager to find him and kill him.