544 pages | 1st January, 2011 | Non-fiction | Biographies & Memoirs
AN INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER
A CHICAGO TRIBUNE HEARTLAND PRIZE WINNER
A NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST
A brilliantly conceived and illuminating reconsideration of a key period in the life of Ernest Hemingway that will forever change the way he is perceived and understood.
Focusing on the years 1934 to 1961—from Hemingway’s pinnacle as the reigning monarch of American letters until his suicide—Paul Hendrickson traces the writer’s exultations and despair around the one constant in his life during this time: his beloved boat, Pilar.
Drawing on previously unpublished material, including interviews with Hemingway’s sons, Hendrickson shows that for all the writer’s boorishness, depression and alcoholism, and despite his choleric anger, he was capable of remarkable generosity—to struggling writers, to lost souls, to the dying son of a friend. Hemingway’s Boat is both stunningly original and deeply gripping, an invaluable contribution to our understanding of this great American writer, published fifty years after his death.
"Hendrickson’s two strongest gifts—that compassion and his research and reporting prowess—combine to masterly effect."
The New York Times Book Review
"The author, an accomplished storyteller, interprets myriad tiny details of Ernest Hemingway’s life, and through them says something new about a writer everyone thinks they know."
The Economist
"Hendrickson’s engrossing book offers a fresh slant on the rise and fall of a father figure of American literature."
San Francisco Chronicle
"A lyrical and expansive search for the essence of a famous writer—heart, soul, and hull."
Chicago Tribune
"There’s never been a biography quite like this one. . . . The stories are rich with contradiction and humanity, and so raw and immediate you can smell the salt air."
Publishers Weekly
Paul Hendrickson is a three-time finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and a winner in 2003 for his book Sons of Mississippi. The Living and the Dead: Robert McNamara and Five Lives of a Lost War was a 1996 finalist for the National Book Award. Hemingway’s Boat was a New York Times best seller and also a best seller in the UK. He has been the recipient of writing fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Lyndhurst Foundation, and the Alicia Patterson Foundation. Since 1998, he has been on the faculty of the Creative Writing Program at the University of Pennsylvania, and for two decades before that, he was a staff writer at The Washington Post. He lives with his wife, Cecilia, a retired nurse, outside Philadelphia and in Washington, DC.
US: Knopf
Audio: Recorded Books