Hunting With Hemingway

Why isn't this excellent Kirkus review listed on your site along with the less-than-favorable ones from Publishers Weekly and Library Journal? Here's what Kirkus has to say: Hemingway and Lindsay (Dreamland,1998) carry the Hemingway traditions of hunting family, and storytelling into the new millennium. After her mother's death in 1997, Hilary, the daughter of Ernest's younger brother Leicester inherits an audiocassette. On the tape is a recording of a fireside story telling session given by Leicester who had committed suicide 15 years earlier. Hilary transcribes these tales she has never heard before, weaving them with the chatter of his fireside companions and with her own feelings and the result is a book that rejoices in the simple beauty of a story. A huntsman and writer like his brother, Leicester describes adventures that he and Ernest experienced around the globe-with tales of nighttime crocodile hunts and slim escapes from stone- throwing baboons. Together, Leicester and his brother-often his savior-make a dynamic duo, and his tales are awesome, admirable, and a bit incredible. The pair escapes vicious packs of cannibal dogs, kills a king cobra, captures wild ostriches in Africa, and slays a Komodo dragon in the Far East. Or do they? As Hilary, Lindsay and their daughters listen to the recording, they just can't decide whether these are true stories or tall tales. Here, the story becomes a personal and touching one as well. Leicester Hemingway chose "the family exit" rather than suffer a double amputation make necessary by his diabetes. Hearing her father's stories helps Hilary finally mourn his loss and gain a new perspective on her family tradition. Hilary honors her father and celebrates her family legacy with this collection of fantastic hunting stories.

I picked this book up at a local bookstore. I've never read anything by Hemingway (that I remember, anyway), so I thought I'd give it a shot. I couldn't believe the treasure I'd found! I've been lucky enough to travel a bit..through India, northern Europe and some of the Bahamas, and this book just made me ache for more travel. I couldn't put it down! I didn't read anyone else's review, because I didn't want it to taint my own, so here's the scenario: Ernest's brother's daughter (Ernest's niece) has a cassette of her father telling tales, in breathtaking precision and detail, of his hunting expeditions with his brother Ernest. This tape comes to her after her mother's death, and she is swept up in the emotions of hearing her father's voice and sharing the experience with her own family. I'm not a huge hunting buff, but this book showed a respect for life unlike what I've seen in many others. The way a place is described...a taste...a moment...it's difficult to read this and not imagine yourself exactly in the moment. I spent hours curled up in a papasan chair on my sun porch, transported and lost in Africa, India, on the seas...I can't praise it enough. It was breathtaking. I have just this morning started reading "True At First Light", hoping it will captivate me the way the other has done.

My husband and I and two of our friends, which we bought a copy for each of their birthdays, have all agreed that this is a wonderful book with some surprises, some whimsy and also found the love of the Hemingway family was much like our own families. Ms. Hemingway and Mr. Lindsay have a winner.

I was given this book. I think it is well written and in an interesting manner. It is woven in a way that makes it hard to tellif its fact or fiction. It is a quick read with lots of good stories complied into one.

When her beloved mother died from cancer, she left Hilary with a cassette tape that recorded the musings of her long dead father, Leicester "Baron" Hemingway, Ernest's younger brother. The tape contained stories of the alleged exploits of Baron and Papa as they hunted game mostly in Africa. Hilary, her spouse Jeffrey, and their daughter Bear begin a quest to determine whether the stories are genuine or just tall tales from an excellent storyteller.Even if a reader is not a Hemingway fan, they will absolutely enjoy HUNTING WITH HEMINGWAY because Baron's tales are entertaining and fun short stories. Whether the stories are true, hyperbole, or totally made-up, the insight into the relationship between Baron and his deep admiration and respect for Papa, who returns his sibling's love, humanizes one of the literary legends. Toss in Hilary's quest in search of her elusive father makes this one of the best anthology collections of the year.Harriet Klausner