Combing through used book stores is a passion of mine that’s almost as hard to resist as fly fishing.
Several weeks ago I stumbled across this version of Papa Hemingway by AE Hotchner. She Who Must Be Obeyed grabbed it before I could and plowed through it during our Montana run a few weeks ago.
She had in fact just read about Papa’s growing paranoia in the last few months of his rather amazing life the night before we headed south out of Bozeman and drifted leisurely through Yellowstone on our way to Jackson – it made for most interesting conversation as we tried to envision dealing with those issues back in the late fifties / early sixties.
I’ve just read the book over the past few days and finished it late last night, ironically as hell on the anniversary of Hemingway’s birthday (quite unintentionally, but it does offer some nice coincidental effect).
Hotchner is a masterful author himself and captured an enduring and very intimate portrait of Papa over the last 14 years of his life, many of which were spent in the outdoors, cavorting in Europe, savoring bullfights and working in Key West and Cuba.
Though not steeped in any way in the fishing lore that makes up so much of how fly fishers often picture Papa in our mind’s eye, this is a most worthy read. We found a nifty hardback (1966) for five bucks in a junk store; there are still plenty of copies around to be had.
A more thoughtful review to follow one of these days…..
