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August 14, 2025 @ 7:00 pm - 8:00 pm
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An Evening with Joe Pan and Reed Smith
Books & Books Presents…
AN EVENING WITH JOE PAN
in conversation with
Reed Smith
discussing
Florida Palms: A Novel
(Simon & Schuster, $29.99)
Thursday, August 14th, 7:00 PM | Books & Books, Coral Gables
RSVP HERE FOR FREE
Books & Books and the Books & Books Literary Foundation are proud to present an evening with Joe Pan discussing Florida Palms: A Novel (Simon & Schuster, $29.99). He will be in conversation with Reed Smith. The Outsiders meet Sons of Anarchy in this gripping debut about a group of young men dragged into a drug-running operation.
**Please note that this event will be held at Books & Books Coral Gables at 265 Aragon Avenue. Tickets are free and books will be available for purchase the night of the event.
About the Book:
The Outsiders meet Sons of Anarchy in this gripping debut about a group of young men dragged into a drug-running operation.
It’s 2009, the height of the Great Recession. Best friends Eddy, Cueball, and Jesse are fresh out of high school and wild at heart, but the economy is in the dumps. With jobs scarce along Florida’s Space Coast, they join a furniture-moving company run by Cueball’s father, a gruff ex-con biker who’s supposedly retired from the fast life. But when a mysterious old boss arrives in town, the payload is switched out, and the young men are coerced into shipping a new designer drug up the East Coast.
What is advertised as a bastion of brotherhood and respect quickly spirals into back-alley deals, bloodshed, and an all-out turf war that will test the bounds of love and friendship. Enticed by larger paychecks, and fueled by burgeoning drug habits, the young friends find themselves trapped between rank opportunists, warring gangsters, meth zombies, crazed bikers, and a blowgun-wielding hitman, all vying for a shot at the big time.
Soaring, ambitious, and deeply humane, Florida Palms is a gritty coming-of-age story with enormous heart and an unflinching vision of the violence and inequities facing forgotten communities. In a relentless race against desperate circumstances, the young friends must fully embrace the crime life or abandon their loyalties and risk ending up face down in the muck of the unforgiving swamps.
BUY THE BOOK HERE
About the Author:
Joe Pan is the author of five poetry books and founder of Brooklyn Arts Press, one of the smallest independent houses ever honored with a National Book Award in Poetry, and publisher of Augury Books, honored with a Lambda Literary Award in Lesbian Poetry. His writing has appeared in the Boston Review, Hyperallergic, The New York Times, and Poets & Writers, and he’s been profiled by Publishers Weekly, The Rumpus, and The Wall Street Journal. He grew up along the Space Coast of Florida and now lives in Los Angeles. With his wife he cofounded BAH, an activist group that serves unhoused populations with sleeping bags and goods. Florida Palms is his debut novel.
About the Moderator:
Reed Smith was born in Weimar, Texas, and holds degrees from The University of Texas and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. He has worked as a paramedic, a teacher, a geriatric advance care practitioner, and an actor who performed at The Globe, Orange Tree, and Swan Theatres in England. He lives in Hollywood, Florida, with his wife and twin daughters. Declarations of Hunger is his debut collection of poems.