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Rust Hills, RIP
August 18, 2008

I'm thinking a lot about Key West today -- not just because my mother has a home there and while no one is in residence right now, the apartment itself is directly in the line of the coming hurricane.  I'm also thinking about Key West, and have been all weekend, because that's where so many wonderful book people have lived, and -- as was reported last week about L. Rust Hills, have died.
I didn't know Rust Hills (somehow, one always seems to use both names), despite the many trips I've made to Key West since the 80s.  He was a little before my time as a publishing watcher.  But I know his influence on writers -- some Key West based, like, say Ann Beattie and Annie Dillard , and others from Richard Ford to Christopher Buckley to (his now widow) Joy Williams, who didn't necessarily live there but left their hearts with him.  Most of those writers spoke to the New York Times and other publications about Rust Hills as an editor -- to me, he'll always be the guy who wrote about how to eat an ice cream cone in his wonderful, curmudgeonly How to Do Things Right: The Revelations of a Fussy Man, a book worth looking at if you ever need to know anything about anything.   

I have a signed copy, given to me by our mutual friend, the Key-West based sculptor, John Martini.

It was and  remains a treasured gift, from a treasured friend, by a treasure of the book loving world.

(By special arrangement, this column can also be found at The Book Party on wowOwow.com)

Posted by Sara Nelson on August 18, 2008 | Comments (2)