HEMINGWAY'S BOAT: EVERYTHING HE LOVED IN LIFE, AND LOST,1934-1961.**

UK,8vo HB+dw/dj,1st edn.FINE+/FINE.No owner inscrptn,but unusually; an anonymous handwritten black ink felt-tip pen,prize presentation inscrptn: 'Congratulations Prize Winner! book supplied by Waterstones New George Street.' to the title page and no price-clip (£20.00) to dw/dj.Bright,clean subject's coloured photographic illustrated dw/dj with b/w lettering; with negligible shelf-wear and creasing to edges and corners - one tiny snicks and reciprocal creasing at head of spine/ backstrip of the dw/dj - no other nicks or tears present.Top+fore-edges bright and clean; contents bright,tight,clean,solid and sound - pristine and virtually as new - no dog-ear reading creases to any pages' corners - appears to be unread.Bright,crisp,clean,sharp-cornered,plain black paper-covered boards with bright,crisp,blocked silver gilt letters to spine/backstrip,a black+silver(?)/ grey speckled headband,a sewn-in grey/silver silk bookmark ribbon and immaculate plain black endpapers.UK,8vo HB+dw/dj,1st edn, vii-viiipp+6-534pp [paginated] includes contents list/table,a prologue,Pts 1-4 comprising 20 chapters+ epilogue,small b/w contemporary subject's and subject-related biographical photographs - as either chapter headpieces or tailpieces, acknowledgements,essay on sources,Coda: on the curious afterlife of 'Pilar',select bibliography and an index.Plus [unpaginated] 1pp blank - publisher advert to reverse,half-title page with Hemingway's boat (Pilar) b/w photographic frntis to reverse,title page,a dedication,separator title page,page of Hemingway-related prose extracts and 2pp permissions acknowledgements to rear.
Paul Hendrickson has delved into the life of Ernest 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.We see how,even in his most accomplished period,he carried within the seeds of his tragic decline.And throughout this period,he had one constant (along with the devils that haunted him his whole life) - his beloved boat,'Pilar',built to his specifications in a Brooklyn boatyard,delivered to him in Florida and then abandoned in Cuba towards the end of his life,when he was ill beyond recovery.The boat represented and witnessed everything he loved in life - virility,deep-sea fishing in all its competitive nature,access to the beloved ocean,freedom,women and booze,the formative years of his children.
We see Hemingway in Paris,in Key West,in Cuba,in New York - and so often on 'Pilar',or wanting to be.Hendrickson shows the close connection between Hemingway's life and the words that would wind up on the pages of his books; the fictions he invented about his life; how the darkness was always there,and the joie de vivre.We see him with Maxwell Perkins; his friend and rival,F. Scott Fitzgerald; Marlene Dietrich; his four wives and three children.And we get insight into his troubled son Gigi,a doctor who lived his adult life mostly as a cross-dresser,and died squalidly and alone in a Miami women's jail.He was the son Hemingway forsook the least,yet the one who disappointed him the most,as Gigi acted out for nearly his whole life so many of the tortured,ambiguous tensions his father felt.
This is a literary tour de force,an invaluable,unforgettable and original contribution to our understanding of a great American writer.
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