Review by Booklist Review
Having decided against college, 18-year-old Hemingway landed a job with the Kansas City Star. Thrown entry-level assignments on gritty topics, he throws himself into his work, punching out compact, vivid sentences that comport with the paper's writing guide and also hint at the trademark fiction style he would later cultivate. But the Great War was calling, and before his nineteenth birthday Hemingway was serving with the Red Cross on the Italian front, where he would be seriously wounded in a mortar attack. As a strategy for literary biography, searching the events of early adulthood for clues to the broader trajectory can be risky, yet 1917 was an indisputably momentous year for Hemingway and the world, and it is, indeed, illuminating to consider his time as a journalist as a key bridge between the Oak Park boy and the battle-scarred author. Paul, a veteran of the Kansas City Star's editorial staff, provides generous insight into the paper and the city, and his expert interest in Hemingway parallels his fond appreciation for the newsroom's clack of typing mills and the smoke of countless cigars. --Driscoll, Brendan Copyright 2017 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Library Journal Review
Paul (coeditor, War + Ink: New Perspectives on Ernest Hemingway's Early Life and Writings), who worked as a writer and editor at the Kansas City Star for more than 40 years, focuses on a significant period in Ernest Hemingway's life, a year that began with his debut as a cub reporter for the Star and ended with his being wounded while serving as a Red Cross ambulance driver in Italy during World War I. This book draws on Paul's knowledge of the Star's history, Hemingway's correspondence, and earlier scholarship, including Charles A. Fenton's The Apprenticeship of Ernest -Hemingway and Ernest Hemingway, Cub Reporter, edited by Matthew J. Bruccoli. Paul brings to life the tyro-writer's adventures as he covers a wide variety of news assignments, including stories on vice, crime, and political corruption. Hemingway's apprenticeship at the Star, Paul argues, had a strong influence on the development of the author's major themes as well as his prose style. A generous selection of rarely seen photos enliven the text; an appendix reprints a selection of Hemingway's articles from the Star. -VERDICT Written in clear, graceful prose, Paul's book reads like a novel. It should please Hemingway enthusiasts of all stripes, from general readers to -scholars.-William Gargan, Brooklyn Coll. Lib., CUNY © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Yes, there is more to learn about the man who remains one of America's most iconic writers.Paul, who for decades wrote for the Kansas City Star and, with several others, has co-edited a previous work on Papa (War + Ink: New Perspectives on Ernest Hemingway's Early Life and Writings, 2014, etc.), shares some history with Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961), who began his professional writing career at age 18 at the Star, where he worked for more than six months before enlisting in the ambulance service for World War I. Paul focuses on this single year, and we learn about how Hemingway acquired the Kansas City gig, where and how he lived in the city, the sorts of stories he covered, his reputation among his colleagues, his decision to apply for the ambulance service (he failed the military physical), his journey to Europe, and his severe wounding in Italyan experience that would lead, as the author points out, to A Farewell to Arms. Paul notes that during Hemingway's tenure at the paper, there were no bylines, but he occasionally sent home clippings, and Paul mined the young man's letters as well to pin other pieces to the novice writer. He also points out the connections between the Kansas City stories he covered and his fiction (as Paul does as well with the ambulance service). The author, like previous biographers, whom he generously mentions, struggles to separate fact from fiction in the life of Hemingway, who could be a fabulist. Paul also traveled to key sites, including the spot where Hemingway was wounded, to enrich his account. He says several times that Hemingway learned to write in Kansas Citya genial exaggeration, of course. Near the end, he reveals a key discovery about Papa and a grand jury. A clear, concise, sympathetic account of a gifted young man discovering who he isand what he can do. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
