Mile Marker Zero : The Moveable Feast of Key West

For Hemingway and Fitzgerald, there was Paris in the twenties. For others, later, there was Greenwich Village, Big Sur, and Woodstock. But for an even later generation there was another moveable feast: Key West, Florida. Mile Marker Zero tells the story of how writers and artists found their identities in Key West and maintained their friendships over the decades.

Winner of the Florida Book Award, Gold Medal for Nonfiction"A tall but telescopic-sight-true tale of Hunter Thompson, Jimmy Buffett, Tom McGuane, and a large cavorting cast running around with sand in their shoes at ''ground zero for lust and greed and most of the other deadly sins'': Key West."--Tom Wolfe"An engrossing tell-all in which Key West''s most notable residents struggle to find sanity, sobriety and a place to call home."--Kirkus Reviews"A necessary read for fans of Florida fiction or any of the figures included here, as well as for those traveling to Key West."--Library Journal "McKeen''s portrait of Key West as a onetime bohemian utopia and hotspot is atmospheric, and . . . his anecdotes are absorbing."--Publishers Weekly"A romp . . . a rollicking chronicle of the musicians, artists, writers and filmmakers who created a vibrant if nihilistic scene in the 1970s. Deft storytelling . . . a good story about good times (and bad)."--Wall Street Journal"Only enhances the appeal of the Conch Republic . . . a tale of the island''s famous personalities that flows as easily as an ocean breeze." --Orlando Sentinel"Make McKeen''s tale your next trip to the island."--South Florida Sun-Sentinel"A wonderful zinger of a book. Never before have the literary traditions of the Conch Republic been mined for such gold nugget anecdotes."--Douglas BrinkleyMile Marker Zero tells the story of how a league of great American writers and artists found their identities in Key West and maintained their friendships over the decades, despite oceans of booze and boatloads of pot, through serial marriages and sexual escapades, in that dangerous paradise. Here are true tales of a generation that invented, reinvented, and found itself at the unending cocktail party at the end--and the beginning--of America''s highway.