The Writers' Compound

In 1976, four award-winning American writers each bought a modest home in a secluded one-acre section of Old Town, Key West, an island paradise that for years had welcomed and embraced a coterie of other well-known writers from Ernest Hemingway to Tennessee Williams.

For a while, these four writers – poet John Ciardi, novelist Ralph Ellison, novelist John Hersey, and poet Richard Wilbur -- shared a special friendship. But over time, bitter resentments and acrimonious confrontations threatened to tear their longstanding friendships apart. 

Now, a candid new book, based on first-person interviews with other Key West writers, publishers, and compound residents, tells their drama-filled story. At the same time, the book captures the nostalgia of the period, and reveals the many reasons for the enduring allure of Key West for writers.