Hemingway's Boat : Everything He Loved in Life, and Lost, 1934-1961

A man who let who let his own insides get eaten out by the diseases of fame had dreamed new books on this boat. He'd taught his sons to reel in something that feels like Moby Dick on this boat. He'd accidentally shot himself in both legs on this boat. He'd fallen drunk from the flying bridge on this boat. He'd written achy, generous, uplifting, poetic letters on this boat. He'd propositioned women on this boat. He'd hunted German subs on this boat. He'd saved guests and family members from shark attack on this boat. He'd acted like a bully on this boat. She'd been intimately his, and he hers, for twenty-seven years - his final twenty-seven years. She'd lasted through three wives, the Nobel Prize, and all his ruin. He'd owned her, fished her, worked her and rode her. She wasn't a figment or a dream or a literary theory or somebody's psychosexual interpretation - she was actual. Even in his most accomplished period, Hemingway carried within him the seeds of his tragic decline and throughout this period, he had one constant - his beloved boat, Pilar. Paul Hendrickson has delved into the life of Hemingway and done the seemingly impossible: present him to us in a whole new light. With poetic sensibility, tireless research, and dazzling writing, Hendrickson focuses on the period from 1934 to 1961, from the pinnacle of Hemingway's fame to his suicide. Hendrickson shows the close connection between Hemingway's life and the words that would wind up on the pages of his books. "Hemingway's Boat" is an unforgettable and unique contribution to our understanding of a great American writer.

Paul Hendrickson is the prize-winning author of Seminary; Looking for the Light; The Living and the Dead and Sons of Mississippi. He currently teaches non-fiction writing at the University of Pennsylvania and for two decades before that he was a staff writer at the Washington Post.