Along The Edge Of America: A Riveting Travel Book from Florida to Texas―Southern Coastal History, Mystery, Lore, and Hardy Characters

by Peter Jenkins

The best-selling author and walker Peter Jenkins, landlubber par excellence, now takes to the waves and explores, as only he can, a part of America rich in history, mystery, and lore: from the Florida Keys to the Mexican border, by way of the Everglades, the treacherous "jungle woods," genteel southern homesteads, the Cajun marshlands, and Texas's coastal cattle country. It's a riveting encounter with hardy, resourceful, colorful - and occasionally dangerous - characters who have one thing in common: a fierce love for their world of wind and water and sun, a world that Jenkins brings uniquely to life.

Genres: Travel, Nonfiction, Memoir, Adventure, Journal, Biography, American

320 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 1995

About the author

Born July 8th, 1951 in Greenwich, Connecticut,

Peter is the eldest of the six children of Frederick and Mary Jenkins.

Graduated from Greenwich High School in 1969.

Attended Woodstock in summer of 1969.

Graduated from Alfred University in 1973 with a BFA, majoring in Sculptor/ Ceramics.
Began his Walk Across America on October 15, 1973 in Alfred, New York. It ended in mid-January of 1979 in Florence, Oregon.

When not traveling and exploring he lives on a farm in middle Tennessee . He is the proud father of six children, Aaron, Brooke, Rebekah, Jedidiah, Luke and Julianne and is married to the former Rita Jorgensen of Michigan .

Reviews

[Cynda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jenkins does a very good job describing coastal folk on the Gulf of Mexico. He so perfectly understands the nature of getting emotionally ready for a hurricane, particularly larger ones:

About preparations for Hurricane Andrew (1992): It was a fearful time, but also strangely exciting.

Jenkins writing is very readable. No big words. Fish names do not count. I can identify with Jenkins because I too learn through my mistakes. I can also identify with his sometimes having to just nod, smile, and accept that I do not fully understand. But people with good hearts Jenkins understands. He meets people all through the Intracoastal Waterway and up rivers. Sometimes he stays for a few weeks in a community to learn about people, places, history, culture.

I read several of Jenkins books years before joining Goodreads. I am glad I read this book and hope to read his China Wall book.

[Sgmiller · Rating 4 out of 5]

Along the Edge of America was my first Peter Jenkins book. I've heard good things about his first book, A Walk Across America, which was one of the main motivating reasons for me to read this. Along the Edge of America is set approximately 22 years after Jenkins walked across America and opens with a man on top of the world. Money was good, wife was fine, children are intelligent and healthy but then It all comes crashing down around his ears with the arrival of the divorce papers. From this deep depression Jenkins finds that it's time for him to go on another adventure. Faced with the obstacles of age and obligations to his family he has to find a non-pedestrian mode of travel. His research and desire for the challenge of conquering a new medium he decides to purchase and travel by boat from the Florida Keys along the Gulf of Mexico. What ensues is a journey of personal growth, reconnecting with his father, and discovering the more subtle history of the south as told by many colourful figures ranging from alligator hunters to former drug smugglers to old southern belles.

Along the Edge of America is a eventful and riveting read filled with adventure and peril that comes with the big blue sea. I'd like to read more by Jenkins but I feel like it's a solid first impression of this well established travel writer.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

What we have here is a brilliant non-judgmental author, the mere presence of whom makes people want to open up to him, to tell stories of their lives. In the beginning it was a slow, slow trip along the Gulf Coast. He’d stop at various bays sometimes for as long as two months. At each he’d slowly gain confidence of the often otherwise close-mouthed, distrustful folk eking out subsistence from the Gulf’s diminishing bounty. They’d express their inner feelings – loves, fears, strengths, cares, flaws. All would teach him, in reflection, about his own interior emotions. His trip took almost two years. Toward the end he moved faster and he admonishes himself for doing it. “Stopping could be such a hassle—reaching out to strangers, being vulnerable, finding a new place to keep [my boat] and me. But stopping, opening up to others, was exactly where the richness was.” Overall, an absorbing read.

[Becky · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've read other books by Peter and enjoyed them... I like this one too. Peter is on a boat and exploring the Gulf Coast. He starts out in the Florida Keys. So far I've read about a number of charactors he has met: the half Seminole Indian/half Irish brothers who live in the swamps; the young drug smuggler who got caught, etc. I'm enjoying the book. What he does on these trips is exactly what I like doing on vacations -- meet people!

[Emily Wolfenbarger · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Peter Jenkins' books, they are beautiful and so real to the America I'm learning to love. This is a brave story of an ordinary chap who learns to sail, then sails along the Gulf and America's coastline, taking his time to understand the culture and people who have long called the coastline home. Wish I was this brave to just jump and go....

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Walk Across America 1 was the best out of all of these books. These seem to get progressively worse, but it's not the writing style, it's more what happens in the adventure and the adventure is more interesting when he meets the very different people and stays with them. Southern Florida was not very friendly and they were very weary of him in their territory

[Carol · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having grown up in Florida, and specifically along the Florida panhandle during my college years, this book was a trip down memory lane for me. Author accurately portrays the people whose lives has been the fabric of the gulf towns from Florida to Texas. He allows the readers to join him in this discovery of places and people that are forgotten yet mythical. A treasure!

[Laurie Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an interesting non fiction about peter Jenkins trip on his boat along the Gulf of Mexico and the interesting people he met along the way. I learned a lot about the geography and rivers and towns along the Gulf of Mexico. It was a two year journey.

[Ethan Hulbert · Rating 2 out of 5]

I can't get into why, but I had to read this book from cover to cover whether I liked it or not.

Unfortunately, I didn't really love it. It wasn't dreadful, but it definitely wasn't a good book. The first 200 pages (out of about 300) were just Florida. Nothing wrong with Florida (well...) but it's kinda false advertising for the book.

Jenkins wasn't really a likable narrator. The divorce painted him in a bad light from the start, and then he just took two years to buy a boat and leave his new family and kids? Speaking of them, they were teased a lot and then there was very little payoff. There was a tiny bit about his wife but she barely factored, and his kids, who he talked about missing and how he'd have them visit him one by one to get this amazing bonding time... they were basically never mentioned again and the bonding time was never written down. There was ONE bit where he had two kids with him and the chapter was over very fast. Why bother building this aspect of the adventure up if there's so little pay-off? Same with the father bonding experiences, which I guess there were multiple of, but only one was ever written about and only barely. It was poorly planned.

Many of the people and stories he told were... not really that interesting or good. After hearing some of these people and these stories, I won't say which, but it didn't paint the people in good lights and it really made me never want to visit some of these places.

Jenkins had a VERY annoying writing habit where he'd start off almost every chapter with something dramatic and 'in media res' to try and grab your attention and then dial it back in the second paragraph and build up to it. It got so old, SO fast, and really since there were so many different people and different places it made me constantly wonder if I had missed exposition on someone. Sometimes he also seemed to forget to ever connect the dots back to the opening drama, and I was left wondering what the hell he had been talking about.

I also got the impression he thought he was a better descriptive writer than he ended up actually being. I wish many of these people were pictured.

The religion angle was also very heavy handed and turned me off a lot of those parts.

There was SO much time at the beginning spent on being inexperienced with the boat. Yes, we get it, you're new, you're learning. It was like the first half of the book. It was pretty cool when he got good at it near the end, but this did not need THAT much setup.

It also really skipped around. Like I said, 2/3rds of it was set in Florida, then BOOM suddenly he's spent six months on a farm in Alabama? Wait what? How'd he meet these people? Why? What was he doing there? Where was the boat? Why was he living with some other random family for six months instead of his own family? How did any of this happen??? And then anyway BOOM and he's back on the boat and a state away four chapters later.

Seemed like he spent a lot of time early on in his adventure writing and taking notes, but then spent less time on that as he traveled more, and so his later adventures are much more scattered and jumpy. It was very weird.

Still, I did enjoy some stories, and I liked the window into a world I wouldn't have gotten otherwise. I would not read or recommend other Jenkins books based on this, but I'm not really THAT unhappy with this book. It was fine.

[Reney]

First, full disclosure - I'm a HUGE fan of Peter Jenkins books. I read "A Walk Across America" and "The Walk West" in the early 80's. I immediately fell in love with Jenkin's writing style and, most of all with his willingness to interact with an interesting cast of characters along the way! I learned so much from those books - about the diversity of the US and it's people. I think it would be fair to say that I adopted Jenkins' style and when I travel, I try my best to stay open and interact with others as much as possible. That is where the real adventure begins. Fast forward 40 years and here I am with another book by Peter Jenkins in my hand. This time, a documentation of his exploration of the US Gulf Coast by boat. "Along the Edge of America" is just as rich as his previous work. It is full of description of the environment and the people in it. The Gulf Coast is a beautiful place and Jenkin's work has brought me an even deeper appreciation of the area. I highly recommend Jenkin's books to anyone who lives in the US or wants to understand more about our country and how the land has shaped us. As a population, Americans have way more in common than we might be lead to believe.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

A photographic hug of the 2500 mile Gulf coastline with stories recealing an author who took the time to study the coast from his boat and the people from his heart. Dedicated to his mother "who taught her children to see the beauty in the world, whether it be in a tiny wildflower, an unusual face, on a high hill, or across an ocean in a foreign land." I am left with a lovely sense of peace, a greater appreciation for our country, a bit of its history, and the glorious spectrum of its people.

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not outstanding, probably because of the focus on fishing, so I sort of found myself skimming the book. The biggest problem is my love of nature and my desire to see it all, while knowing so much of what he pictures may not be there any longer, or may be inaccessible to a landlubber like me. Then there is the intrusion of today's divisions that make me wonder if I would even be comfortable.

Anyway, my review seems to be based on my mood today, so don't trust it.

[Katharine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting non fiction account of a man at 40 (Peter Jenkins) who took a mostly solo boat trip over 2500 miles around Florida, Texas, Louisiana, New Orleans to the Mexican border. He went from a novice to a pretty good mariner by the time he got lessons from Warren, Scott and other boaters along the way and his account of the people he met.

[Ann · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a beautiful book, amazing pictures and stories. Peter, you made a trip that took 2 years. What stories you can tell! I have been reading Peter's books and really enjoy his writing. Thank you for a chance to see these areas, peoples, animals. Great book!

[Chet Nichols · Rating 3 out of 5]

Old travel book about the gulf coast from Florida to Texas. Author is from Spring Hill Tennessee.

[Patrick McMullin]

Boring

[Max · Rating 5 out of 5]

Letto in italiano "Correnti blu". Il libro del cambiamento di vita!

[Michael Harris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Having read three previous books, I thought this would be more like the first, Walk Across America but in a boat, traveling the Golf Coast. It had some of the "adventure travel" that I enjoy reading about with some well done character sketches of people he meets along the way. Still not has full of life as the first.

[Kristen Miller · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great read. Jenkins runs his small motor boat along the Gulf Coast of the US and introduces us to the residents. His writing is straightforward and paints a clear picture of that part of the country - somewhere I've never been and haven't read about before. He makes it seem like a different country - a culture and scenery apart from the rest of the US.

[Sarah Frobisher · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this in one of my undergrad lit classes. It was an interesting story of a man who boated along the Gulf of Mexico to meet different people. It was an intriguing account of the different cultures and situations he encountered.

[Marla · Rating 5 out of 5]

So far this has been one of my favorite books by Peter Jenkins. I felt like I actually met some of the people in his book and grew to know more about the Gulf Coast I live in (Far from the tourist stops).

[Jacque Mgebroff · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book before A Walk Across America and it was still totally inspiring. The US is an amazingly diverse culture without being legislated so. This is a book you don't want to end because you want to learn more about the places you'll never see.

[mandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I haven't found a travel writer that I love more.

[Jrobertus · Rating 3 out of 5]

a very engaging narrative of a boat trip around the gulf, with encounters of fascinating characters. loved it.

[Renee · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't finish this book. I loved his first two books but this one bothered me because of the author's divorce and new marriage.

[Beth · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was a little disappointed - nowhere near as good as the Walk Across America set.

[Shannon · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of my favorite authors and I think I may have read nearly all of his books. He always has great stories of interesting real people that he has met in his travels and adventures.

[Diane Supinski · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really interesting, a view into the lives of exotic people in our country in this day and age.

[Dan Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a great idea. cover the "inner coast" of America. Finding ways to discover another segment of America

[Ted Ryan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good book, nice stories about the people he met, it just didn't pull me in like his other books. Recommended none-the-less.