The Mystery of Hadley’s Loss of the Manuscripts: A New Novel: The Hemingway Thief

I guess I’m not the only one reimagining Hemingway history. As those of you who follow my blog know, I’ve written my third book called Hemingway’s Daughter. As those of you who are Hemingway fans also know, Hemingway did not have a daughter. My second mystery, a mystery called The Rage of Plum Blossoms, is being published by Kindle Press in October and hopefully I can then finish editing Hemingway’s Daughter and get that out.

Anyway, this new book looks really interesting. Hemingway (well, really Hadley) famously lost a suitcase of almost all of his manuscripts in early 1922. Hadley, his first wife, was to meet him in Switzerland, where he was working to get a story for The Toronto Star on the Lousanne Peace Conference. Thinking he might want to work on his own writing (and Lincoln Steffens had asked to see some of his work), Hadley put virtually 100% of his sketches and written stories of the moment into one valise. Hemingway was as yet unpublished and Hadley packed all she could find including carbon copies. While the train was still standing in the Gare de Lyon, Hadley went to buy a bottle of Evian water leaving the suitcase unattended. When she returned, it was gone. Only two stories remained: Up in Michigan, which was buried in the back of a drawer as Gertrude Stein said it was unpublishable (Ha! Shows what she knew!) and My Old Man as it was out with an editor.

While some Hemingway scholars have suggested that maybe this was a good thing as he had to start over with his improved leaner style and a bit more experience, obviously it was an incredible loss to scholars as well as to Hemingway. He was fairly devastated by it and tried not to blame Hadley. However, a bit of bitterness remained as to that topic despite Hemingway’s forever love for Hadley.

In any event, a new novel by Shaun Harris called The Hemingway Thief tries to find out what happened to those unpublished sketches. It is Mr. Harris’ first novel and features Henry “Coop” Cooper, a struggling novelist kicking back in Mexico. He becomes embroiled in a deadly race for Hemingway’s stolen works.”

The works have never been found. If they turn up in an attic…well, very valuable indeed.

The book could be a lot of fun. Check it out! I know I will when I get a chance.

Another review and description. Sounds like a rollicking mystery and real fun.

https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2016/08/the-hemingway-thief-shaun-harris.html

Christine

Faulkner and Hemingway: Sharing the Stage at the Faulkner Studies Center

Hemingway famously huffed: “Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words? He thinks I don’t know the ten-dollar words. I know them all right. But there are older and simpler and better words, and those are the ones I use.”

Faulkner also apparently commented that Hemingway seemed to think he had to marry every woman he fell in love with.

Every other year the Center for Faulkner Studies at Southeast Missouri State University holds a conference that draws speakers from around the world. The conference is of course focused on themes related to William Faulkner, but a second writer is included whose themes and style could be compared and contrasted to Faulkner’s own.

He wrote to Ingrid Bergman too — With Ingrid Bergman

This year, the Center went with Ernest Hemingway. Quoting the director of the Center, Dr. Christopher Rieger, “they’re probably the two greatest American novelists of all time, frankly – certainly of the 20^th century.”

In order to select the invitees to the conference as speakers, the Center made proposals for twenty minute papers on any topic related to William Faulkner and/or Ernest Hemingway. While many of the presentations are academic and talk about critical analysis of the works of the two authors, the Center also has encouraged events aimed at more general audience for those of us who simply enjoy the study of either Hemingway or Faulkner or both of them.

The conference is to be held October 20 – 22. It sounds very fun.

Hello Papaphiles!

Hello Hemingway readers and fans! Every four months, I post my opening post for those just joining in. For those who stop in regularly, I sincerely and truly thank you for reading and for being interested in Hemingway 55 years after his death and 117 years after his birth. So here is my opening post to acclimate you to what will be happening here.

Love and thank you, Christine

There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”
― Ernest Hemingway

What Will Be Happening Here?

This will be a place to talk Hemingway and any topics related to him and his life. That gives us a lot of material: writing, Paris, divorce, relationships, Key West, Cuba, Idaho, fishing, boats, bulls, boxing, cats, horses, dogs, the Midwest, movies, other writers. Anything else? Oh right, drinking, awards, depression, friends, cruelty, generosity. Heard enough? Well, there’s still politics, women, religion, Fidel Castro, Gary Cooper, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Africa. Done yet? Uh, no. we’ve still got mothers, hair, sexual ambiguity, sons, daughters, actresses, sex, suicide, death, clothes, honor, hygiene, the IRS, psychiatrists.

And what would Papa say about a blog? Hmm, well, if I wanted to pull a page from Woody Allen, I’d say that he’d say: No subject is terrible if the story is true, if the prose is clean and honest, and if it affirms courage and grace under pressure. He was a journalist first and foremost and he kept up with the times so I think he’d be amused.

So what qualifies me to write this blog? Not too much that’s going to impress you. All I can say is that I love him, just as he was, flawed and fabulous, mean-spirited bully and most gracious of men, driven wordsmith and drunken raconteur, bigot and egalitarian, all of it. I’m no scholar. I’ll leave that to Timeless Hemingway, www.timelesshemingway.com, which does a superb job and is an unparalleled resource. However, I’ve read them all many times: the books, the short stories, the analyses, the biographies, the women, even the Hemingway cookbook which I actually cook from (the trout is delicious). I’m just an obsessed fan, uncluttered by the need to be neutral. I hope to learn from you too.

Finally, I find him fascinating, complex, and yes, manly but I think he actually “got” quite a bit about women contrary to popular myth. That’s a topic for another day. Also a topic for another day is why the mask above on the lovely woman. Also a topic for another day is what do we call him in this blog? Ernest, Ernesto, Wemedge, Nesto, Ernie, Oinbones,Papa, Tatie, Hem, Hemingstein, Hems, or just plain Hemingway? We’ll see. Perhaps we’ll put it to a vote. I have a Hemingway party on his birthday every year (July 21) and I’ll take a poll there too and let you know the results.

The Hemingway July birthday party in my barn

Of course, none of my friends “get” it and think Hemingway was that guy who wrote in short sentences and wanted to fight with everyone and run with the bulls. They are partially right and mostly wrong. But hey, you can’t throw away old friends just because they don’t really read or have an informed opinion about Hemingway–or can you?

These posts will be short and fun (I hope). I try to post at least every two weeks. I hope it’s enjoyable for Hemingway people as well as for casual observers. I’ve looked at the other blogs about Hemingway. Most are terrific but there still is room for a lighter take and for the unending discussion about why we continue to read him fifty-four years after his death. And if you have to ask . . .

Check me out when you have a chance. It’s going to be one hell of a ride.

Hemingway gives back to Vets Who Write

Wonderful idea! Vets with writing skills perfect their techniques at a writing conference/retreat at the Hemingway-Pfeiffer Museum and educational Center. Please read about it below as we near Veterans Day. Love, Christine

EH4639P October, 1941 Ernest Hemingway duck hunting in Idaho, October 1941. Photographer unknown in the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston. — EH4639P October, 1941
Ernest Hemingway duck hunting in Idaho, October 1941. Photographer unknown in the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston.

Military Veterans Attend HPMEC Writing Retreat

PIGGOTT, Ark. — Nine talented writers came together recently to hone their skills and to form a community in Northeast Arkansas at the Hemingway-Pfeiffer Museum & Educational Center (HPMEC) writing retreat for military veterans.

The weekend retreat, held at the site where Ernest Hemingway penned much of his iconic war novel A Farewell to Arms, was funded through a partnership with the Arkansas Humanities Council and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Dr. Rob Lamm, professor of English at Arkansas State, served as mentor for the retreat. A mentor at other HPMEC retreats, Lamm said, “These are very special people-veterans from many branches of service who share a love of literature. Ernest Hemingway would have been impressed by their writing talents.

1918 Nurse Agnes von Kurowsky and American Red Cross volunteer Ernest Hemingway, Milan, Italy. Photograph in the Ernest Hemingway Photograph Collection, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston.

“Even more, he would admire their courage, as some chose to revisit the drama and trauma of their experiences by writing memoirs, fiction and poetry. Courage was the unstated, yet ever-present theme, of the retreat. Some writers recalled battles we associate with war. Others wrote of battles for social acceptance and struggles with personal demons.”

Writers began each day with exercises to get started, often looking at samples of Hemingway’s writing as models for their own. They enjoyed lunch together at the educational center and ended the afternoon with a group meeting to reflect, share and discuss the processes used by each writer.

Between formal meetings, the writers had time to work individually, often in the same rooms where Hemingway wrote. The format allowed writers time to focus on their own creative interests, to receive feedback on their work and to form relationships with other writers.

Writers’ retreats for general audiences are held twice annually at the Hemingway-Pfeiffer Museum in Piggott. The next retreat is scheduled for Monday through Friday, Nov. 7-11, with Andrea Hollander of Portland, Ore., serving as mentor. Contact the museum for more information at (870) 598-3487 or email HPMEC director Dr. Adam Long, at adamlong@astate.edu.

Dr. Rob Lamm

Fun Literary Trivia

A bit of literary trivia starting with, of course, Ernest Hemingway.

Hemingway hated the cover art for The Great Gatsby. When Scott Fitzgerald showed the copy of The Great Gatsby to Hemingway, he did not like it at all. Fitzgerald told him not to be put off by it, “It had to do with a billboard along a highway in Long Island that was important to the story.” Apparently Fitzgerald told Hemingway that he, Fitzgerald, had initially liked the jacket, but now he didn’t. Hemingway wrote about this anecdote in A Moveable Feast.
The Great Gatsby cover

Hem and Scott

Nancy Drew author Carolyn Keene wrote under a pseudonym. The books were actually ghost written by a number of authors and published under the collective pseudonym ‘Carolyn Keene’.

Louis May Alcott refused—despite public hunger—to have her heroine Jo March marry Laurie, the neighbor who was in love with her. Instead, she married Jo to Professor Bhaer and Laurie ended up with her sister Amy.

Emily Brontë only published one novel, i.e. Wuthering Heights. Brontë died at the age of 30 a year before the book’s publication so she was not around to see its success.
Ms Bronte’s masterpiece

Jane Austin’s works were all published anonymously. Her first novel, Sense and Sensibility was published under the name “By A Lady.” Her next novel, Pride and Prejudice was labeled “By the Author of Sense and Sensibility”. It wasn’t until after her death that her brother revealed her name to the public.
Jane Austen

J.R.R. Tolkien’s first name stands for John Ronald Reuel.

Vladimir Nabokov wrote Lolita on notecards. According to Life Magazine, the Russian author wrote most of his novels on 3 x 5 notecards and kept blank ones under his pillow whenever inspiration hit.

George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four was almost called “The Last Man in Europe.” The British author took awhile to name his 1949 dystopian novel. He also had trouble deciding what year to set the story and considered 1980 and 1982.
1984

The monster in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein has no name. The monster from the 1818 gothic horror is referenced as “wretch, demon, and monster” among others. In the book, Frankenstein is the name of the young scientist.

John Steinbeck is credited with giving Route 66 its nickname. “66 is the mother road, the road of flight” John Steinbeck described in his Pulitzer prize-winning Grapes of Wrath.

William Golding had a hard time publishing The Lord of the Flies. According to Golding’s daughter, Judy Carver, “My earliest memory is not of the book itself, but of a lot of parcels coming back and being sent off again very quickly. He must have been grief stricken every time it returned.”
Lord of the Flies

Starbucks coffee is named after a main character in Moby-Dick. The Seattle founded coffeehouse considered Pequod (Captain Ahab’s whaling ship) before settling on Starbucks a play on the Pequod’s chief mate Starbuck.

The penname Dr. Seuss was a way to escape punishment in college. After getting caught drinking in his room, Theodore Seuss Geisel was banned from the school’s newspaper and other activities. To continue writing, he started using the penname Seuss.

Hemingway Cat “Jailed”: Crime Perpetrated by Martha Gellhorn

Oh, gosh. That Martha was always a spirited one! So take a look below.

August 17, 2016 10:03 AM

Hemingway cat ‘jailed’ after tourist complains of bite returns home

Martha Gellhorn

Martha Gellhorn has been released from custody in Key West with a clean bill of health and no charges pending.

The gray tabby cat, named for a gusty war correspondent who spent some time married to Ernest Hemingway after they met at Sloppy Joe’s bar, recently spent 10 days in quarantine at a veterinarian’s office on Stock Island after a tourist called police to report the feline had bitten her mother’s hand.

Martha Gellhorn the cat did nip the left hand of Mary Ann Law, 76, of New Port Richey, at 4 p.m. July 20, according to the Monroe County animal-bite report, after staff said the woman had touched her.

But the cat, one of 53 six-toed felines who live on the gated grounds of the Hemingway Home and Museum, 907 Whitehead St., was up to date on her shots and after observation was released July 30.

“No sign of rabies,” reads animal control officer Lindsey Thompson’s report.

Of course not, said Jacque Sands, general manager of the Hemingway Home, who on Tuesday reported that Martha was back home with her cat colleagues after All Animal Clinic pronounced the tabby not only safe but “a sweetheart.”

“It was the first time ever and the woman was aggressive with the cat,” Sands said of the incident. “They are pets. We have 32 employees who consider them five-day-a-week pets.”

Law reportedly didn’t want to make a fuss but her daughter called Key West police, who turned the matter over to the Florida Keys SPCA, which cleared the cat. All the Hemingway cats sees local vet Dr. Edie Clark.

Any animal bite, however slight, must be reported to the state Health Department under Florida law. Many times hospitals report them but those who were bitten aren’t interested in pursuing a case against the pet owner, Thompson said.

Hemingway cats, the six-toed or polydactyl felines whose degree of attachment from the famous writer has been long debated, have drawn drama before, including a decade-long legal battle with the government. The U.S. Department of Agriculture regulates the cats, which roam about the grounds and who each have a full name — Harry Truman, Truman Capote, Bugsy Siegel, Billie Holiday and Cary Grant currently share the mansion with Gellhorn.

So Martha is out again, looking for another adventure.

New Book about The Sun Also Rises: Everyone Behaves Badly

No one defined masculinity more thoroughly than Ernest Hemingway, particularly in his best years, i.e. the 30’s and 40’s. I just read a review of a new book out by Lesley M. M. Blume, called “Everybody Behaves Badly: The True Story Behind Hemingway’s Masterpiece, The Sun Also Rises.”

I always liked that quote from The Sun Also Rises. Maybe it’s just cynicism, but I prefer to think that it’s realism. The end of that quote is “Everyone behaves badly—given the chance.”

In addition to discussing the real life people upon whom the characters in the book are based, Ms. Blume’s book discusses the issue of sexuality in “The Sun Also Rises” as well as in Hemingway’s posthumously published 1986 novel, The Garden of Eden with its gender-bending main characters well ahead of their time. Hemingway was “one of the last authors to be a celebrity in his own right, back when ‘manly’ was a good thing.

Lesley Blume with Valerie Hemingway LMMB VH Plaza

The book attempts to answer the question of whether Hemingway’s persona of hyper-masculinity was real or fake and notes that “we haven’t solved the problem of how to be a man in the modern age and Hemingway was a caricature of the last generation’s attempt to do so, as Donald Trump may be of ours.” We no longer admire—thank God and for good reason—killing large animals in Africa or watching them die in bull fights. The concept of masculinity is complex and evolving.

Parenthetically, I highly recommend watching the documentary called The True Gen. It’s about Hemingway’s friendship with Gary Cooper. Gary Cooper apparently was always a gentlemen and Hemingway…wasn’t always restrained. Yet, somehow they had an extremely strong friendship that lasted for a lifetime—which was a rarity for Hemingway—with Cooper at times forcing Hemingway to stop with the image and be real. Despite personalities that were almost polar opposites, both worked hard, were more sensitive that you might suspect, and hid parts of themselves for the image each wanted to project. It worked for them. The movie is a gem and is well worth watching.I found it extremely touching. Cooper and Hemingway died 6 weeks apart: Cooper of cancer and shortly thereafter, Hemingway killed himself.

So the book by Lesley Blume sounds valuable and additive to Hemingway analysis. She knows the period well and I expect the book will ring true and be a load of fun to read.

NO PAIN, NO GAIN Theory of Writing

I just read an article about writers who make themselves physically uncomfortable—perhaps consciously or unconsciously—as a spark to their creative juices. I wrote a blog post a couple of months ago about the strange writing habits of some writers and this is a variation on that theme. Below I will give you the cite for the whole article, but here are a couple of interesting points.

Some writers do all of their drafts in the font Courier for the “brutally utilitarian shape of its letters and mono spaced characters marching across the page.” Somehow they feel that when it gets transformed into New Times Roman or Arial in the final version, it looks vastly better and more professional and feels polished compared to the draft.

As you all know if you follow this blog, Hemingway often wrote standing up. This was in part due to pain from the plane crashes and in part, he liked it. However, just as often, I see photos of him working at a large rustic table or at his dining room table.
Writing and not standing

3 Vladimir Nabakov liked to write in his car, hopefully while parked.

Friedrich Schiller kept a bunch of rotting apples in his desk that filled the room with “eye watering stench.”

Wallace Stevens jotted lines on to scraps of paper while working.

Walter Scott wrote while on horseback. This is puzzling.

Victor Hugo hid all his clothes save for a grey shawl to prevent himself from leaving the home until he was done meeting his writing requirements.

Balzac drank 50 cups of coffee a day. I would think that would make him get up and down an awful lot.

Truman Capote “couldn’t think unless he was lying down and described himself as a completely horizontal author”.

The theory is that discomfort promotes creativity. I’m not sure.

Do you have any weird habits? I feel lucky if I can sit down in front of a fire with the dogs and just write. A glass of wine is welcome, but optional.

Now Kim Kardashian is a Hemingway Fan? See her tour his Cuban home–if you wish

A bit surreal. Kim says she is like Hemingway as he kept a strict record of his weight daily (Hemingway wrote it on the door jam) and she too (gasp!) does the same! There is even a video of her tour with sister Kourtney into the Finca Vigia. Okay, it’s Sunday so I’m going on the light side today. Kim Kardashian to the Camera

http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/videos/kim-kardashian-im-just-like-ernest-hemingway/

Below: Kourtney bored by it.

Kourtney Kardashian Looks Bored

Boy, those Kardashians sure have nice hair.

VP Biden quotes Hemingway

I missed the Democratic convention last night but my friend, Barbara, alerted me to VP Joe Biden’s citing of Hemingway (Quote from A Farewell to Arms) when talking about the challenges and love in his own life. Just an excerpt in reference to the tragic death of his son Beau.

“Thank you. His wife and his two kids are here tonight. As Ernest Hemingway once wrote, “The world breaks everyone, and afterwards, many are strong in the broken places.”

I’ve been made strong at the broken places by my love with Jill, by my heart and son Hunter and the love of my life, my Ashley. By all of you, and I mean this sincerely, those who have been through this, you know I mean what I say — by all of you, your love and prayers and support. But you know what, we talk about, we think about the countless thousands of other people who suffered so much more than we have, with so much less support. So much less reason to go on. But they get up every morning, every day. They put one foot in front of the other, they keep going. That is the unbreakable spirit of the people of America. That is who we are. That is who we are. Don’t forget it.”

Hemingway irrelevant? I think not.