HEMINGWAY'S BOAT

I've wanted to be a writer since I was about ten years old.  When I was recently graduated from high school I was at K-Mart checking out their book section.

Carlos Baker's biography of Ernest Hemingway Ernest Hemingway:  A Life Story had been published in paperback and I  bought a copy.  I was fascinated by Hemingway's story and as I began to read his work I became an admirer.

There are lots of Hemingway detractors.  He drank too much.  He was too macho.  He didn't develop the female characters in his fiction.

But I think Hemingway is a lot like his fiction. You have to read between the lines.  When you read between the lines you find a sensitive, compassionate man who wrote fiction that is deeply touching.

One of the biographies I read recently is Hemingway's Boat by Paul Hendrickson.  It deals with the influence Hemingway's boat, the Pilar,  had on his life and relationships.

I consider Mr. Hendrickson's book one of the best biographies I have read of Hemingway  It is by no means a hagiography, but it doesn't engage in constant bashing either.