Local Author Explores Tarpon Springs Culture

Delving into sometimes exotic foreign cultures is a popular theme among today’s journalists.  A good discussion about what contrasts one culture with another, while standing on the outside looking in, depends how far the writer finds himself from the subject matter.  Imagine the challenge facing a foreign journalist assigned to compare American customs and traditions in Boston, Massachusetts with those of Miami, Florida. 

Historical fiction seems to suit Pinellas County author, Harvey Alexander Smith, as seen in his most recent novel, Danger Beyond the Reef, an action-adventure-drama about two Greek-American families in Tarpon Springs, Florida.  Smith paid his dues as a writer who gets inside a culture by actually living it.  A former advertising executive and copywriter for over 30 years, he has written about what he observed from inside the cultural arena as an “ex-pat” living in Guadalajara, Mexico for 11 years and, most recently, El Salvador for two years as an advisor to the Minister of National Defense and Director of National Civil Police.  Smith clearly chooses not to be confined to the role of a tourist overstaying his visit.  According to one reader, “…his work is a bit like traveling without leaving home.”

His first visit to Mexico in 1959 at the age of 19 began when he enrolled in Guadalajara’s Institute of Technology as a business administration major and, to his surprise, the lone Gringo in the school.  Between the end of his schooling and his home building business, Smith was employed as a sales manager for Volkswagen distributorship, zone manager and optometrist for Mexico’s largest optical chain and a brief tour of duty as a translator for the yachting events during the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico.

He managed to find time to publish a bi-monthly English language tourist magazine, Spotlight on Guadalajara to help promote his construction business centered on building homes for the area’s “ex-pat” Americans.  Smith is now working on his third book, Margaritas Are for Tourists, chronicling his wild and exciting 11-year experience living in Guadalajara, Mexico during the free-wheeling 1960s.  He recently completed a book chronicling his 2011 travels to Central Italy, An Italian Odyssey: Beyond the Wine Country of Tuscany.

Being both bi-cultural and bi-lingual enabled Smith to take full advantage of his acquired knowledge of Mexico’s rich culture and colorful traditions to write his first novel, El Idolo: In Search of a Legend; a heartwarming story of a young man’s difficult struggle to become a successful singer while living in the shadow of his idol, Mexico’s legendary singer and actor, Pedro Infante. 

Moving to Tarpon Springs from El Salvador in 2005 brought Smith into close contact with the Greek community and the sponge fishing industry.  He was amazed at the similarities between the Greek and Hispanic cultures – respect for God, the church and close-knit families – so close, in fact, that he enlisted the help of former Tarpon Springs mayor, Beverley Billiris and her Greek husband, a former sponge diver, to pen his second novel, Danger Beyond the Reef.

Reminiscent of classic 1953 film, Beyond the 12-Mile Reef, where Greek sponge divers face off with antagonistic Key West “Conch” rivals, the story’s theme deals with similar cross-culture culture issues.  The complexities of a daunting challenge following a surprise announcement of an arranged marriage between two young Greek-Americans, takes the reader from the historic sponge docks of Tarpon Springs to the beautiful little Greek island of Kalymnos in the Dodecanese Archipelago.  The book is replete with the customs and culture of Greek-Americans and cleverly salted with colorful Greek proverbs leading into each chapter. 

Shortly following the release of Danger… Smith wrote and published a one-act play taken from the book‘s third chapter called A Question of Marriage featuring the family dinner scene and a surprising announcement of an arranged marriage linking two families.

For those preferring a casual approach to history, Smith’s novel paints an authentic historical picture of Tarpon Springs during the late 1970s reaching back to the end of the 19th century when Tarpon Springs first became a fashionable destination for well-to-do East Coast visitors fleeing the cold winter weather to the north.  The immigration of Greek sponge fishermen to Tarpon Springs didn’t really begin until 1905, when it was discovered that harvesting sponges in deeper water with diving suits was more lucrative than “hooking” them with a long pole from a skiff.  It was also much more dangerous.  An amateur SCUBA diver, Smith underwent training briefly as a hard-hat diver in California and professes to know just enough about it to respect those who do it for a living. 

Beverley Billiris, former mayor of Tarpon Springs, businesswoman and wife of George Billiris, collaborated with Smith from the time he first put pen to paper in May of 2008.  She offered valuable first-hand experience and an insider’s viewpoint as a non-Greek marrying into a traditional Greek family of sponge fishermen and merchants over 30 years ago. 

Danger Beyond the Reef is a colorful literary recipe offering readers a close and intimate look at the people and places in Tarpon Springs and Kalymnos, Greece, along with liberal doses of romance, danger, humor and excitement all wrapped around the history, culture, traditions and customs of two Greek destinations.