Mile Marker Zero: The Moveable Feast of Key West

Geographically isolated Key West, Fla., gained a reputation for vice and lawlessness while also developing a unique spirit and culture both Latin and Anglo, writes McKeen (biographer of Hunter S. Thompson). The spirit of Hemingway, who wrote or worked on nearly all of his major works there between 1928 and 1939, hovers over the island; and Tennessee Williams moved there in the'40s and was still hanging out into the '70s when the streets were thick with younger writers, artists, and musicians like Tom McGuane, Jim Harrison, Hunter Thompson, and Jimmy Buffett. Although McKeen's portrait of Key West as a onetime bohemian utopia and hotspot is atmospheric, and many of his anecdotes are absorbing, others are marred by patches of flabby and testosterone-fueled prose and never quite gel into a cohesive narrative. 8 pages of b&w photos. (Oct.)