Product Description

If Tully Mars had known what he had gotten himself into when he agreed to help find the lost lens belonging to the lighthouse on Cayo Loco-well, he might never had agreed to help in the first place. Then again, maybe he would just have taken a slightly longer nap before setting off on his wild adventure. And it isn't just Tully-who Buffett fans will remember well from Jimmy's bestselling Tales from Margaritaville-on the madcap quest. There's Ix-Nay, an Indian shaman with a dislike of the media; Mr. Twain, Tully's loyal steed; Cleopatra Highbourne, the 102-year-old owner of Cayo Loco and Cuban baseball addict; Captain Kirk, fishing trip leader and boatman extraordinaire; former country music star Sean Spurl-AKA Tex Sex; Bucky Norman, a Wyoming cowboy who has found his way to the ocean; and even a fellow named Jimmy Buffett, who decides he might as well join in on the party. Raucous, funny, and wise with the world's strangeness, A SALTY PIECE OF LAND is the best and bestselling novel yet from one of America's most beloved storytellers.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #386562 in Books
• Published on: 2004-11-30
• Format: Bargain Price
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 480 pages

From Publishers Weekly
There's a Condé Nast Traveler article fighting to get out of bestseller Buffett's first new novel in a decade, a groovily laid-back, ramblingly anecdotal, sun-soaked bit of Caribbean escapism that his Parrothead fans will relish like another chorus of "Margaritaville." Tully Mars, a 40-ish ex-cowboy turned guide at the Lost Boys Fishing Lodge island resort, undertakes various sojourns around the Caribbean, to Mayan ruins, a jungle safari camp, a spring break bacchanal in Belize. Nothing much happens—"That day, we spent the rest of the daylight hours on the shallow waters of Ascension Bay and the lagoon amid incredible natural beauty unlike anything I had ever seen before" is about as busy as it gets—except that Tully meets a parade of colorful natives and expatriates, including a Mayan medicine man, a British commando and a 103-year-old woman who skippers a sailing schooner and wants to restore a historic lighthouse on Cayo Loco, the titular island. The characters are all hospitality entrepreneurs, and Buffett (A Pirate Looks at Fifty) also gives them shaggy-dog anecdotes, tidbits of Caribbean history and desultory life lessons to relate. There are glimmers of plot—bounty hunters, loves lost and found—but mostly Tully has little to do but savor the accommodations and atmospherics of tourist locales while the sea washes him with waves of love, happiness and maturity as infallibly as the tides. This book is as cheery and tropical as Buffet's music.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From AudioFile
Just one short step ahead of the law, cowboy and lost soul Tully Mars finds himself fishing for a living in the Caribbean. This wild, unbelievable but thoroughly enjoyable story follows the lyrics of Buffet's song of the same name, and the music appropriately marks the beginning and end of each CD. Narrator John David Souther transports the listener, beautifully portraying Tully's struggle to find himself and his way forward. And as one might expect from Jimmy Buffet, Tully gets where he's going through a lot of fishing, sailing, and partying. The story has the feel of a modern-day pirate adventure, with the gold being self-discovery and a place in the world. Souther, with his sensitive, laid-back voice, drops the listener into the somewhat predictable but entertaining action. H.L.S. © AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

From Booklist
Singer, songwriter, and novelist Buffet is back, and so is Tully Mars, the inimitable protagonist from Tales from Margaritaville (2002). Recounting his transformation from cowboy to lighthouse keeper in eccentrically humorous style, Tully reminds us why Buffet's laid-back lyrics and stream-of-consciousness prose are almost hypnotically addictive. On the run after a tussle with his Cruella De Ville-like employer, psycho poodle-rancher Thelma Barston, Tully heeds the call of his beloved conch, evading a posse of bounty hunters as he heads south toward the swell of warm ocean breezes, encountering a predictable but nevertheless engaging cast of characters along the way. Eventually alighting on the edge of the Yucatan Peninsula, he crosses paths with Cleopatra Highbourne, the 103-year-old captain of the Lucretia, who entices him to join her in an almost quixotic quest. Hopping onboard the aging schooner, Tully embarks on a psychedelic odyssey that concludes with the restoration of an ancient Bahamian lighthouse on Cayo Loco--the aforementioned salty piece of land. This mystical, mind-bending journey will appeal to fans of Buffet's uniquely fuzzy blend of comedy and insight. Margaret Flanagan
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Customer Reviews

Not a cheeseburger in paradise.....
Tully Mars continues his adventures in Jimmy Buffet's tale A Salty Piece of Land. First, I would like to say that I'm a pretty serious Parrot Head, so my expectations were high for this book. When we first met Tully in Tales From Margarittaville, he was heading for the beaches of Alabama to eventually set sail into the Gulf Stream Breeze.

Buffet's writing style is one I enjoy, but this book didn't have the ebb and flow of a well thought out work. Tully finds himself getting high, reveling in sexual debachary and still running from his former employeer.

Mar's friends and newest employeers are interesting characters, but there is a certain lack of depth to each that would have made the story better.

If you are interested in just getting away for a while, then this book will allow you to grow a pencil thin mustache and offer a change in attitude.

If you are looking for something that will keep you mildly intrigued, this may not be your read....

One of the most pleasurable reads
This was one of the most pleasurable reads for me, and I read about a book per week, so that's saying a lot. Maybe it's because it combines my own loves of flying, sailing, and adventure. The character is pretty much Jimmy himself in a fictional tale. I'm reading it again (something I seldom do) right now and am enjoying it just as much.

A Salty Piece of S**T
Oh man. Where do I start? I bought this book for two bucks at a moving sale. I'd like to get my money back but the homeowner has moved. I've got a team of private investigators trying to find him for me. Two bucks is two bucks. If you're looking for a way to kill some time, stare at your feet, go out and watch the grass grow or find somewhere to watch paint dry. Do anything but read this book. I love Buffet's music. Have for years. Can he write? Yes he can. Can he build a cohesive, believable story? Nuh uh. No way. I'm sorry to say this but I think that a special education ten-year-old on a margarita binge could do a better job of that. Before reading this book you don't just need to suspend your disbelief. You need to have it hacked right out of your brain with a scalpel. Or maybe a chain saw. At one point in the "story" one of the characters writes a letter. The letter, printed in its entirety, spans more than fifty pages. I don't know about you but I haven't received, or written, a lot of fifty-plus page letters. I have never come so close, so many times, to closing a book permanently before finishing it. A guy in the book sleeps with a girl in the book. Once. She departs. He immediately makes her the beneficiary of his estate and he dies within days. She builds a boat and becomes instantly proficient enough at sailing to sail around the world. Yeah, like that happens every other day. I could give examples like this until the cows came home but there's some fresh paint next door that I'd really like to go and watch dry. Sorry, Mr. Buffet. Love the music, hated the book. My time spent reading the book was wasted away (again in Margarittaville). It was a salty piece of something, all right, but it sure wasn't land.