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“This is an important exchange of correspondence between an undeniably major contemporary American literary figure and someone with whom he had a close personal and professional relationship during the last thirteen years of his life. . . . Having both sides of the correspondence available vastly increases the value of the book—because one can see how they responded to and interacted with one another. This book will provide an important insight into the last decade of Hemingway’s life.”—Jackson R. Bryer, coeditor of French Connections: Hemingway and Fitzgerald Abroad
Looking back on the years since [Hemingway’s] death, those years that have passed without him, I’d say that the most resounding thing I learned from him was this: Don’t fear failure, and don’t overestimate success. It was a tenet he lived by and a legacy I treasure. . . . His was a deep, abiding friendship, like no other in my life. Rereading these letters, after all these years, fills me with sadness, exultation, and the realization that an extraordinary man infiltrated my life with wisdom, love, fortitude, and an indomitable spirit that I now gladly share with others.—From the Preface by A. E. Hotchner
Dear Papa, Dear Hotch presents for the first time the collected correspondence between literary giant Ernest Hemingway and his young friend and informal agent A. E. Hotchner. Hotchner, author of the well-known memoir Papa Hemingway, served as the authorized adapter of Hemingway’s stories for the stage, movies, and television. Spanning the final quarter of Hemingway’s life from 1948 to 1961, the book includes more than 160 letters, cables, and cards between these two close friends.
The correspondence begins following their initial meeting in Cuba and ends after their final encounter at the Mayo Clinic, where Hemingway was a patient. In the years between, they hunt game in Idaho and visit Hemingway’s old haunts on an automobile trip through Italy and France. In Spain, Hotchner attends his first bullfight and, with Hemingway as his manager, enters the ring himself as a matador under the sobriquet El Pecas (The Freckled One). Revealing Hemingway’s preoccupation with his physical condition, the collection closes with sobering glimpses into the psychological turmoil that eventually led to his suicide in 1961.
DeFazio presents the letters in a chronological “clear-text” format, in which only the author’s final intention is transcribed within the body of the edition. All cancellations, alterations, and corrections are listed in notes at the back of the book. DeFazio also provides alternative readings and offers textual commentary that will enable readers to reconstruct most of the features of the original manuscripts and envelopes. This exciting collection of letters between two extremely lively and interesting characters will provide much valuable information about Hemingway’s late career.
About the Editor
Albert J. DeFazio III is an English instructor at George Mason High School in the City of Falls Church and George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. He is the author of Literary Masterpieces: The Sun Also Rises in the Gale Study Guides to Great Literature series.