This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items from the Julio Mario Santo Domingo Collection.
Robert Sabbag’s semi-biographical Snowblind, first published in 1976, tells the story of Zachary Swan, a 1970s cocaine smuggler who relied on scams and ruses to move drugs past customs officials and keep himself out of harm’s way in the years before organized crime took control of the trade. Sabbag’s lively, literary prose and his subject’s outsized adventures have won the book critical acclaim and enduring popularity. The Edinburgh publisher Rebel Inc. celebrated this popularity in 1998 with this opulent reprint.
Printed in a limited, numbered edition of 1,000 copies, the volume features an introduction by Howard “Mr. Nice” Marks, a notorious smuggler of cannabis. The title page is autographed by Sabbag, Marks, and Damien Hirst; the latter contributed the book’s striking design. In keeping with its subject matter, it’s bound in mirrors rather than boards, with silvered edges and spine. An attached metal bookmark is fashioned after a credit card in Zachary Swan’s name, and the endpapers and slipcase are printed with images of hundred-dollar bills. To complete the package, a cutaway trench in the center of the text block originally concealed a rolled hundred-dollar bill in the manner of a book safe; each bill’s serial number corresponded to the copy number of the individual copy. Regrettably, the bill is absent from Houghton’s copy.
Robert Sabbag. Snowblind. Edinburgh: Rebel Inc, 1998, c1976. HV5810 .S23 1998x.
Thanks to rare book cataloger Ryan Wheeler for contributing this post.