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Hemingway’s Widow
A stunning portrait of the complicated woman who was Ernest Hemingway?s fourth wife, exploring the tumultuous years of their marriage, and evoking her merry widowhood as she shapes Hemingway?s literary legacy.
Mary Welsh, a celebrated wartime journalist during the London Blitz and the liberation of Paris, meets Ernest Hemingway in May 1944. He becomes so infatuated with Mary that he asks her to marry him the third time they meet, even though they are married to other people. Eventually, she succumbs to Ernest?s campaign and, in the last days of the war, joins him at his estate in Cuba.
Through Mary?s eyes, we see Ernest Hemingway in a fresh light. Their turbulent marriage survives his cruelty and abuse, perhaps because of their sexual compatibility and her essential contribution to his writing. She reads and types his work each day and makes plot suggestions. She becomes crucial to his work and he depends upon her critical reading of his writing to know if he has it right.
We watch the Hemingways as they travel to the ski country of the Dolomites; commute to Harry?s Bar in Venice; attend bullfights in Pamplona and Madrid; go on safari in Kenya in the thick of the Mau Mau rebellion; and fish the blue waters of the gulf stream off Cuba in Ernest?s beloved boat Pilar. We see Ernest fall in love with a teenaged Italian countess and wonder at Mary?s tolerance of the affair.
We witness Ernest?s sad decline and Mary?s efforts to avoid the stigma of suicide by claiming his death was an accident. In the years following Ernest?s death, Mary devotes herself to his literary legacy, negotiating with Castro to reclaim Ernest?s manuscripts from Cuba and publishing one-third of his work posthumously. She supervises Carlos Baker?s biography of Ernest, sues A.E. Hotchner to try and prevent him from telling the story of Ernest?s mental decline, and spends years writing her memoir in her penthouse overlooking the New York skyline.
Her story is one of an opinionated woman who smokes Camels, drinks gin, swears like a man, sings like Edith Piaf, loves passionately, and experiments with gender fluidity in her extraordinary life with Ernest. This true story reads like a novel, and the reader will be hard pressed not to fall for Mary.
Illuminating?a stunning achievement. This is the Hemingway book we?ve all been waiting for so long.
– H.R. Stoneback, renowned Hemingway scholar
Christian regales readers with stories from around the world, revealing the life of one of the most iconic literary couples.
– Minnesota Star Tribune
Christian does an admirable job of painting a vivid picture of Welsh in the early years of her life.
– The Times Literary Supplement
This compelling book transported me back to Hemingway?s world, except this time his fourth and last wife Mary was guiding the way. Hemingway aficionados will enjoy the journey. Hemingway scholars will appreciate the detail, including some new revelations, and the fresh analysis of her life and legacy. Bottom line: an important book that fills a long-standing gap and is a pleasure to read.
– Nick Reynolds, author of Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy: Ernest Hemingway’s Secret Adventures, 1935-1961
Timothy Christian has spent years researching Mary?s life across continents and every archive, including troves of information that no one else has tapped. To this task, he brought a sympathetic attachment to the woman behind the Hemingway myth. He has turned up truly fresh and significant information about Mary herself and her life before Ernest, about the courtship and sexual predilections of the couple, and about Ernest?s suicide. While to some extent this story will compromise the myth of the great macho man that was important to Hemingway ? a myth that Mary helped craft and maintain ? it will ultimately provide a fuller understanding of an American icon and the lives he touched. Refreshingly, Christian does not view Mary as a victim, despite Ernest?s callous and violent treatment of the talented journalist who spent her prime years with the aging and difficult master. Christian gives us Mary, a tiny and fearless dynamo, a woman of skill and heart, calculation and vulnerability, who knew exactly what she was getting into when she married Ernest ? and played her hands as best as she could, even as her choices narrowed.
– Carol Sklenicka, author of Raymond Carver: A Writer’s Life and Alice Adams: Portrait of a Writer
Sixty years after Hemingway?s death, Christian sets the record straight regarding Mary Hemingway?s complex relationship with Hemingway and his art during and after his final years. Often stereotyped as accepting a sometimes abusive relationship, Mary comes powerfully to life in this intricately nuanced and mesmerizing biographical tour de force. Honest, unafraid and compelling, Christian finally gives us the true gen.
– Linda Patterson Miller, head of the Editorial Board, The Hemingway Letters Project
Bravo to Tim Christian for creating a portrait of my friend Mary Hemingway that at last shows her for the complex person she was. This is a story that needed to be told and we are fortunate that Tim Christian has told it so frankly, so sympathetically, and so compellingly.
– Susan Buckley, author of Eating with Peter
Mary Welsh is a fascinating subject for a biography…well-written.
– The Spectator (UK)
– Ottawa Review of Books
– Steve Paul, author of Hemingway at Eighteen
– Florida Times-Union
Drawing on extensive research, Christian paints a portrait of a married couple who, whatever their difficulties, ultimately found in each other a rare thing: intimate understanding. With his background as a law professor, including at the University of Alberta, Christian carefully presents his evidence, especially in a compelling analysis of how Mary handled her role as the preserver of Ernest?s legacy.
– Literary Review of Canada
A fair-minded and comprehensive biography of a complex, flawed and heroic figure.
– Vancouver Sun
– H.R. Stoneback, renowned Hemingway scholar
Christian regales readers with stories from around the world, revealing the life of one of the most iconic literary couples.
– Minnesota Star Tribune
Christian does an admirable job of painting a vivid picture of Welsh in the early years of her life.
– The Times Literary Supplement
This compelling book transported me back to Hemingway?s world, except this time his fourth and last wife Mary was guiding the way. Hemingway aficionados will enjoy the journey. Hemingway scholars will appreciate the detail, including some new revelations, and the fresh analysis of her life and legacy. Bottom line: an important book that fills a long-standing gap and is a pleasure to read.
– Nick Reynolds, author of Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy: Ernest Hemingway’s Secret Adventures, 1935-1961
Timothy Christian has spent years researching Mary?s life across continents and every archive, including troves of information that no one else has tapped. To this task, he brought a sympathetic attachment to the woman behind the Hemingway myth. He has turned up truly fresh and significant information about Mary herself and her life before Ernest, about the courtship and sexual predilections of the couple, and about Ernest?s suicide. While to some extent this story will compromise the myth of the great macho man that was important to Hemingway ? a myth that Mary helped craft and maintain ? it will ultimately provide a fuller understanding of an American icon and the lives he touched. Refreshingly, Christian does not view Mary as a victim, despite Ernest?s callous and violent treatment of the talented journalist who spent her prime years with the aging and difficult master. Christian gives us Mary, a tiny and fearless dynamo, a woman of skill and heart, calculation and vulnerability, who knew exactly what she was getting into when she married Ernest ? and played her hands as best as she could, even as her choices narrowed.
– Carol Sklenicka, author of Raymond Carver: A Writer’s Life and Alice Adams: Portrait of a Writer
Sixty years after Hemingway?s death, Christian sets the record straight regarding Mary Hemingway?s complex relationship with Hemingway and his art during and after his final years. Often stereotyped as accepting a sometimes abusive relationship, Mary comes powerfully to life in this intricately nuanced and mesmerizing biographical tour de force. Honest, unafraid and compelling, Christian finally gives us the true gen.
– Linda Patterson Miller, head of the Editorial Board, The Hemingway Letters Project
Bravo to Tim Christian for creating a portrait of my friend Mary Hemingway that at last shows her for the complex person she was. This is a story that needed to be told and we are fortunate that Tim Christian has told it so frankly, so sympathetically, and so compellingly.
– Susan Buckley, author of Eating with Peter
Mary Welsh is a fascinating subject for a biography…well-written.
– The Spectator (UK)
An enchanting read? filled with delightful passages
– Ottawa Review of Books
Living with Hemingway could be downright treacherous, as Mary Welsh would learn even before becoming the great writer?s fourth and last wife. In this fast-paced, drama-packed, and full-bodied biography, Christian has given us the absolute true gen of a woman who sacrificed her own identity while navigating a partnership forged by careless love and deep darkness.
– Steve Paul, author of Hemingway at Eighteen
An extremely well-researched and lucid biography that reads like a novel
– Florida Times-Union
Drawing on extensive research, Christian paints a portrait of a married couple who, whatever their difficulties, ultimately found in each other a rare thing: intimate understanding. With his background as a law professor, including at the University of Alberta, Christian carefully presents his evidence, especially in a compelling analysis of how Mary handled her role as the preserver of Ernest?s legacy.
– Literary Review of Canada
A fair-minded and comprehensive biography of a complex, flawed and heroic figure.
– Vancouver Sun
There are no awards found for this book.
Details
Dimensions:
552 Pages
9in * 6in * 1.53in
920gr
Published:
June 14, 2022
City of Publication:
Toronto
Country of Publication:
CA
Publisher:
ISBN:
9781459750548
Book Subjects:
BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Editors, Journalists, Publishers
Featured In:
Language:
eng
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