Running with the Bulls: My Years with the Hemingways

In this sophisticated and adroitly handled memoir, Valerie Hemingway details the years she spent with the Hemingway family-traveling with Ernest's entourage in Spain, working as his personal secretary in Cuba, assisting Mary with Ernest's estate after his death, and dealing with the psychological trauma of her marriage to Ernest's estranged son, Gregory. While the book offers an intimate look at the final years of Hemingway's life that will be of interest to both scholars and Hemingway enthusiasts alike, it is also a finely wrought and intriguing narrative that details the life of a young Irish journalist who by chance found herself enmeshed in the exciting but often disturbing world of the Hemingway family. From her run-ins with literary and artistic figures in Europe, to her dealings with Fidel Castro in attempts to safely secure the Hemingway estate after Ernest's suicide, Valerie Hemingway observed first hand the last gasps of literary modernism as the culture entered the turbulent politics of the 1960s, and this cultural backdrop sets the stage for Valerie's account of her intellectual awakening. This book is essential reading not only for those looking for an in-depth look at Ernest Hemingway's final years and the aftermath of his suicide but also for those looking for an engrossing account of the author's captivating life.

Running with the Bulls is autobiography par excellence. Valerie Hemingway openly and frankly tells the fascinating story of her life, which began as Valerie Danby-Smith. Her mother was English Catholic, her father Irish Protestant, and their marriage failed. Young Valerie grew up in a convent in Ireland, literally, and she spent the summers of her youth, when the convent school was closed, at a country hotel that attracted artists and writers. Aspiring to be a journalist, young Danby-Smith went to Spain. There she went to interview the American author Ernest Hemingway, then 59 years old and enthusiastically visiting sites from his earlier days. Thus the 19-year-old Irish woman began figuratively "running with the bulls." Danby-Smith became Hemingway's secretary and confidant. She traveled in Spain and France with the Hemingway entourage. She moved to Cuba to help the writer, but soon the Cuban Revolution forced the Hemingways to leave Cuba. Danby-Smith went to New York City to pursue her career, and the Hemingways moved to Idaho. There Ernest Hemingway committed suicide. At his funeral Danby-Smith met Hemingway's youngest son, Gregory, long estranged from the family for reasons she did not learn until many years later. With Fidel Castro's complacency, she helped Hemingway's widow smuggle the famous author's manuscripts and art collection out of Cuba. For several years thereafter she sorted the Hemingway papers at the office of his publisher in New York City. When she married Gregory Hemingway, he was a young doctor in New York. The marriage took her to Florida, back to New York, and later to Montana, where the tragic drama of Gregory's life eventually brought the marriage to an end. Nothing in this book is expected. If the book were a novel, the reader would not believe the story, the famous characters, the twists and turns. But the story is true, and Valerie Hemingway lived it. She tells her story with grace, discretion, and the skill of a fine journalist whose early mentor had been the legendary Ernest Hemingway. At the time she was hired, Ernest Hemingway had stipulated that a requirement of employment was that she would not write about the family. She honored that requirement. But years have passed and others have written about her relationship with Ernest Hemingway, so the time came for Valerie Hemingway to tell it like it was. It was an adventure!

This memoir is beautifully written and very special in many ways. As we all know the life of the E. Hemingway is both fascinating and tragic. Valerie shares historical information that has never previously been disclosed and she shares her adventures and life with the Hemingways with poise and true tenderness. I found the reading captivating. Many thanks to her for sharing her intimate perspective.

I purchased and read this book because of my intense interest in the life of Ernest Hemingway. Memoirs by his family members or friends often disappoint, but I was impressed with this one. Valarie Hemingway writes well and sheds new light on Hemingway's last years, leading up to his suicide. Her tumultuous marriage to Ernest's troubled son Gregory is fully and truthfully explored here for the first time, and that alone is worth the price of admission. Running With The Bulls is an interesting and worthwhile look at the Hemingway family from a fresh perspective.

Valerie Hemingway's account of the last years of Ernest Hemingway's life, and his suicide that affected her in so many ways, is magnificent. She catches the author's insecurities as his abilities fail along with his eyesight. She records his obsession with suicide, countered by his lust for life and his enjoyment of the international acclaim he had won. But this is also about an extraordinary woman, filled with tenderness, steely in her courage, who loved and nursed and nurtured and sometimes fought several Hemingways, including Ernest, Mary, and her husband Gregory, Ernest's ill-starred son. This is more than a memoir: it is a superb study of genius and madness, the betrayals of Ernest's sycophantic friends, and the pain and joy associated with a celebrity life. This is an important work, a great contribution to our understanding of one of America's greatest authors, and his family. She has written with grace and courage and beauty, and were Ernest Hemingway alive, he would be celebrating her achievement.