A life of Ernest Hemingway's first wife and a quite moving return to A Moveable Feast; by the author of 1987's well-received Debutante: The Story of Brenda Frazier. Earlier Hemingway biographers have drawn Hadley Richardson Hemingway as a shadowy figure or as only one in a gallery of Hemingway women. Diliberto gives Hadley a body and importance that outweighs that of any other woman in the writer's life. Hemingway died working on an exquisite memoir of their marriage (a page for A Moveable Feast was found in his typewriter that morning) and- -aside from Lady Brett—Hadley figured strongly in all his heroines. As he aged and his wives failed him, Hemingway's idealization of life with Hadley became a touchstone for youth and art, the fresh powers that once burned like ice under his fingernails, the taut strength unstrung by depression, alcohol, and electroshock treatments. Diliberto keeps her pages fresh with virgin material from Hadley's hundreds of letters to the writer during separations and after their divorce (she burned Hemingway's early letters to her when she remarried) and with many quotations from Hemingway's unpublished sketches and with rich outtakes from A Moveable Feast, which Mary Hemingway had vetted when shaping and retyping that book for publication. Here they are again, the Murphys, the Fitzgeralds, Gertrude and Alice and Bumby and the running of the bulls at Pamplona, but seen through Hadley's eyes as Hemingway restrings his bow for his crossover from journalism to fiction and amazes everyone with the deadly intensity and icy clearness of his sentence. Diliberto shows as well how his unfinished novel, The Garden of Eden, reveals the snapped tensions of their marriage. Said Bumby, their son Jack Hemingway: ``She was eight years older than Papa, and...the breakup...was a blessing. It took place while she was still an attractive and desirable woman....'' ClichÇ-free. Holds Hadley and Hemingway in a clean mirror full of Paris mornings. (Three eight-page photo inserts—not seen.)
Pub Date: April 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-89919-735-3
Page Count: 293
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1992
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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