A Salty Piece of Land: Jimmy Buffett’s Sun-Soaked Novel for Anyone Who Dreams of the Keys
Jimmy Buffett wrote songs about cheeseburgers, lost shakers of salt, and blowing out flip-flops on the streets of Key West. He also wrote novels, and A Salty Piece of Land is the one that reads exactly the way a Buffett song feels.
Published in 2004, the book follows Tully Mars, a Wyoming cowboy on the run from his vengeful boss, who winds up fishing, sailing, and island-hopping his way through Key West, Belize, and a string of fictional Caribbean outposts. Along the way he befriends a 101-year-old sea captain named Cleopatra Highbourne, works as a fishing guide at a resort called The Lost Boys, and gets tangled up with pink seaplanes, Mayan fishing buddies, and a crumbling lighthouse on a tiny island called Cayo Loco.
It is sun-soaked, rambling, and completely uninterested in being anything other than a good time. If you have ever sat on a dock in the Keys watching pelicans dive and thought “I could live like this,” Buffett wrote this book for you.
