TALES FROM MARGARITAVILLE: Fictional Facts and Factional Fiction

Singer/songwriter Buffett, with some 22 albums to his credit, here offers a tie-in of a different sort: assorted fictions and autobiographical sketches related to songs on his new album Off to See the Lizard. Set in the balmy Gulf, they're mainly good-natured paeans to sailing, hedonism, and memorable acquaintances. The short introductory section, ""Changes in Latitude,"" makes clear that this is a project for indulgent fans: in ""Walkabout,"" where ""Johnny Carson was the last American I talked to before boarding the Air France flight that night for Tahiti,"" Buffett briefly waxes lyrical about solitude; and in ""Where is Margaritaville?"" (an allusion to his best-known song), he imagines an island ""at different locations on the perimeter of the Gulf of Mexico?"" One such island, called Heat Wave, is the point of reference for most of his fictions: section two, ""The Heat Wave Chronicles,"" contains the farcical ""Orr to See the Lizard,"" about the town where ""football was like religion""; ""Boomerang Love,"" in which Angel Beech goes home ahead of a hurricane and gets together with the love of her life; and the easy-sliding instances of ""I Wish Lunch Could Last Forever,"" the story of Isabelle, ""a child of the volcano,"" and up-and-coming musician Slade Patterson, ""the man who taught me that love could be more fun than work, that music is the voice of the soul. . ."" After ""Margarita Madness,"" the third section, ""Son of a Son of a Sailor"" offers four sketches of undisguised autobiography: the most interesting are ""Life in the Food Chain,"" a story-within-a-story about being becalmed at sea, and ""Hooked in the Heart,"" retracing a visit to Cuba connected with Buffett's devotion to The Old Man and the Sea. A novelty item--good-natured, picaresque anecdotes evocative of Buffett's Gulf Coast. A must for devoted fans of his music.