Hemingway

by Kenneth S. Lynn

Overview

Ernest Hemingway was a mythic figure of overt masculinity and vibrant literary genius. He lived life on an epic scale, presenting to the world a character as compelling as the fiction he created. But behind it all lurked an insecure, troubled man. In this immensely powerful and revealing study, Kenneth S. Lynn explores the many tragic facets that both nurtured Hemingway’s work and eroded his life. Masterfully written, Hemingway brings to life the writer whose desperate struggle to exorcise his demons produced some of the greatest American fiction of this century.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780674387324
Publisher:	Harvard University Press
Publication date:	03/03/1995
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	712
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x 1.75(d)

Table of Contents

• Preface
• Part One: 1899–1919
  • 1. “I Had a Wonderful Novel to Write About Oak Park”
  • 2. A Peculiar Idea
  • 3. A Land of Magic
  • 4. The Championship Game
  
  
  
  
• Part Two: 1919–1923
  • 5. Rejection Slips
  • 6. “The World’s a Jail and We’re Going to Break It Together”
  • 7. Americans in Paris
  • 8. Dragons’ Teeth
  • 9. Sports
  
  
  
  
• Part Three: 1923–1926
  • 10. “Nick in the Stories Was Never Himself”
  • 11. “We Have More Pun Together All the Time”
  • 12. Harold and Horace, Scott and Zelda
  • 13. Betrayals
  • 14. Double Meanings
  
  
  
  
• Part Four: 1926–1936
  • 15. “I Loved Her Pine”
  • 16. A Hollow Man
  • 17. Mens Morbida in Corpore Sano
  • 18. The Big Out
  
  
  
  
• Part Five: 1936–1945
  • 19. The Spanish Tragedy
  • 20. “Book Selling Like Frozen Daiquiris in Hell”
  • 21. Combined Operations
  
  
  
  
• Part Six: 1945–1961
  • 22. Horrors
  • 23. “How Do You Like It Now, Gentlemen?”
  • 24. “The Country Is Beautiful Around Here”
  
  
  
  
• Acknowledgments
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index

Editorial Reviews

Magnificent… Lynn’s biography…never denies the ultimate heroism by which Hemingway survived his own debilitating inner conflicts. He never denigrates his genius. He has far too high a respect for the fine fiction that such heroism elicited… [An] accomplished, revealing and, all in all, profoundly sympathetic biography.

Times Literary Supplement

This is the most humane, balanced portrait of this extraordinary writer to date. Lynn does not worship the macho Papa, or make easy gibes at his subject’s vanities and fibs, but shows a damaged, tormented, insecure man whose writing, for better and worse, was the product of his own psychological struggle. Sane, well-judged, it sends the reader back with renewed enthusiasm to the work.

The Observer

Essential… One reads Kenneth Lynn with excitement… He has shaped Hemingway’s life and death into a story that approaches tragedy.

New York Times

Not only one of the most brilliant and provocative literary biographies in recent memory but also the study that Hemingway most urgently needs at this point in his critical fortunes… Lynn has provided a model of the way biographically informed criticism can catch the pulse of works about which everything appeared to have been said. In short, he has made Hemingway interesting again.

New York Review of Books - Frederick Crews

Not only one of the most brilliant and provocative literary biographies in recent memory but also the study that Hemingway most urgently needs at this point in his critical fortunes...Lynn has provided a model of the way biographically informed criticism can catch the pulse of works about which everything appeared to have been said. In short, he has made Hemingway interesting again.
— Frederick Crews

New York Review of Books