Conversations with Ernest Hemingway

Book excerpt: These firsthand interviews and newspaper accounts constitute a valuable edition to the sizable and ever-growing Hemingway shelf. They let Papa speak his mind, and the inimitable Hemingway voice comes through clearly: the boastfulness, the fierce ambition, the love of prizefighting and the bullring, the snappish impatience with questions (and questioners) he didn't like, and the high seriousness and dedication to his craft. The pieces from the early days are largely short snippets from newspapers; it is only later - from the 1940s on - that Hemingway begins to get the star treatment from publications such as the New Yorker or George Plimpton's Paris Review. Consequently the best comes last. A splendid, delicious book - for Hemingway fans, one well worth savoring.