Naked in Garden Hills is the first of many Crews novels set in wasteland Florida, where Crews spent much of his youth and adulthood. The almost mythic stature of the state of Florida and the degradation of the land by those who have sought to make their fortunes, provide a thematically appropriate background for the survival struggles of the characters in This Thing Don't Lead to Heaven (1970), Karate Is a Thing of The Spirit (1971), The Gypsy's Curse (1974), and All We Need of Hell (1987).

In its emphasis on socially underprivileged characters trying to survive and, if possible, prevail, Naked in Garden Hills is of a piece with the rest of Crews's fiction and most of his nonfiction.