Paul Hendrickson

Incredibly well researched biography by author Paul Hendrickson who clearly wanted to dispel some of the myths and legends surrounding egomaniac and brilliant architect, FLW. Instead, Paul uses the horrifying murders of Mamah Bothwick, Wright's lover, and her children and other workers at Talesin in Wisconsin to show how Wright's life must've been affected and also to show, at different places in his writings, the kindness, humor and conscious that the man did possess.

Throughout Wright's life, fire played a key role in destroying or attempting to destroy that which Wright loved the most.… (more)

Ernest Hemingway has been the subject of countless books and biographies for more than sixty years now, beginning even before his death by suicide in 1961. I've read a few of them over the years, the exhaustive bios by Carlos Baker and A.E. Hotchner, as well as a small book by his younger brother Leicester Hemingway. And just a few years ago I read Lyle Larsen's critical study, STEIN AND HEMINGWAY, about his friendship with Gertrude Stein, which soon soured. Recently there has been renewed interest, speculating what happened to the shotgun he shot himself with. And this spring there will be another new book, HEMINGWAY'S BRAIN.

Paul Hendrickson's HEMINGWAY'S BOAT was a bestseller several years back, and I can see why. Hendrickson spent years gathering information and researching the book, adding another whole dimension to the controversial author's life - Hemingway as boat enthusiast and sailor. There is plenty here about the events leading up the purchase of the Pilar, and how the author wrote many magazine pieces and other bits of journalism in order to afford the boat. Hemingway was NOT wealthy, something he resented. And more stories too of Hemingway's years in Key West and Cuba and the "big fish" stories that got told and embellished by the author himself and others.

Perhaps the part of the book I found most interesting was the mini-bio of one of Papa's hangers-on who spent part of a year crewing and keeping the boat's log. In the chapter,"Shadow Story," Hendrickson gives us the life story of Arnold Samuelson, a North Dakota drifter Hemingway took a liking to, and lent him books and encouraged his writing. Samuelson managed to publish a couple of magazine pieces, but it wasn't until after his death, that his adult daughter found a journal Samuelson had kept the year he spent with Hemingway. It was later published, a slim book called simply, WITH HEMINGWAY. Now out of print, it enjoyed brief success more than twenty years after Hemingway's death. Samuelson's own life was a rather tragic one which ended in madness and penury. He died alone on his property in Texas. I'd like to read his book - his particular take on Hemingway - some day.

HEMINGWAY'S BOAT is chock full of interesting stories like this, more than I can go into here. It is obviously a labor of love on the author's part, but he pulls no punches. Hemingway was often a bully and a braggart, and, later in life, became the victim of his own reputation. Despite his stellar literary reputation, as a person he was not especially likeable. It's all in here, right up to the sad end. And everything you could possibly want to know about his boat, the Pilar - that's in here too. This is a damn fine book. Very highly recommended, especially for Hemingway scholars and enthusiasts.

- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, BOOKLOVER… (more)