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An illuminating reconsideration of a key period in the life of Ernest Hemingway that will change the way he is perceived and understood. Focusing on the years 1934 to 1961--from his pinnacle until his suicide--Paul Hendrickson traces the writer's exultations and despair around the one constant in his life during this time: his beloved boat, Pilar. We follow him from Key West to Paris, to New York, Africa, Cuba, and finally Idaho, as he wrestles with his angels and demons. Whenever he could, he returned to his beloved fishing cruiser, to exult in the sea, to fish, to drink, to entertain friends and seduce women, to be with his children. But as he began to succumb to fame, we see that Pilar was also where he cursed his critics, saw marriages and friendships dissolve, and tried, in vain, to escape his increasingly diminished capacities. Generally thought of as a great writer and an unappealing human being, Hemingway emerges here in a far more benevolent light. Drawing on previously unpublished material, including interviews with Hemingway's sons, Hendrickson shows that for all the writer's boorishness, depression, and alcoholism, and despite his anger, he was capable of remarkable generosity.--From publisher description.… (more)
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Paul Hendrickson has done extensive research not only into Hemingway and his family, but also into many of the tangential persons who crossed path with the author during his life. He writes lyrically in a stream of consciousness manner about the demons that haunted not only Hemingway himself, but also his family, particularly his youngest son, Gregory, known in the family as Gigi and the sections about his son and several other people who who the author befriended. These parts of the book are a joy to read.
However, if the author's goal was to make the reader think better of Ernest Hemingway, he has not succeeded - at least not with this reader. Hemingway certainly was capable of great kindnesses, but they all seemed to be with people who could be regarded as his social and intellectual unequals. With other writers, his wives and his family, he is still the arrogant & mean-spirited bully of my imagination - always having to put in the hateful & spiteful remark, tearing down other people in order to sustain his own ego. Perhaps that is why he still fascinates 50 years after he ended his own life. It's hard to turn ones eyes away from a train wreck.
At a KC Library event, the author described his approach to Hemingway's highly complex life through narrative of a material object that he loved...his boat, Pilar. He strove to ground Hemingway journalistically in the
The author received a letter from a reader that said, "the only thing that exceeded Hemingway's grasp on the human condition was its grasp on him."