SANCHEZ, Thomas.

£125 · Offered by Peter Harrington · No longer available

King Bongo. First edition, first printing. Presentation copy, inscribed by the author "For mi compadre at Mile Zero, Dink Bruce. Thomas Sanchez, Key West, 4 May 2003" on the title-page. The recipient was Benjamin "Dink" Bruce, whose father Telly Otto Bruce ("Toby") arrived in Key West at the behest of his Arkansas friend Ernest Hemingway in 1935, serving the author in a vague capacity of general fixer for some thirty years. His son "Dink" became a local cult figure 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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