CAPUTO, Philip.

£150 · Offered by Peter Harrington · No longer available

Horn of Africa. First edition, first printing. Presentation copy, inscribed by the author "For Dink Bruce, Regards from your friend and temporary tenant, Philip Caputo. Sept., 1980" on the half-title. The recipient was Benjamin "Dink" Bruce, a cult figure in Key West, the writers' haven in Florida where Caputo moved in order "to write and fish" (McCarthy, A Book Lover's Guide to Florida, p. 271). Bruce's father had arrived in Key West at the behest of Ernest Hemingway in 1935, serving the author in a vague capacity of general fixer for some thirty years. His son "Dink" became a local character in his own right: "Bruce seemed to cross paths with every celebrity who came through Key West. He didn't seek them out; they found him. In Key West, Dink Bruce was royalty" (McKeen, Mile Marker Zero: The Moveable Feast of Key West, p. 90).

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