In a message dated 7/15/03 4:02:33 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
owner-rara-avis@icomm.ca writes:
<<
Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2003 22:56:54 -0400 (EDT)
From: William Denton <
buff@pobox.com>
Subject: Re: RARA-AVIS: Willeford, the Georgian Terrace
Hotel & Hemingway's brother
On 14 July 2003,
Moorich2@aol.com wrote:
: Some months ago I picked up the book HUNTING WITH
HEMINGWAY by Hilary
: Hemingway and Jeffry P. Lindsay (Riverhead Books
2000). Hilary is the
: daughter of Ernest Hemingway's younger brother
Leicester and Jeffry is
: her husband. The book is presented in part as an
evening's backyard
: conversation with several guests as Leicester tells
stories (some
: certainly fanciful) about his brother. A participant
in these
: "conversations" is Charles Willeford, who Hilary
refers to as "Uncle
: Charlie." While the stories by Leicester openly
stretch the truth, the
: portrait of Willeford rings true.
Willeford was friends with Hemingway's brother and his
family? No-one's
ever mentioned that before. Thanks for the mention of
the book--I'm going
to track it down.
Bill >>
I enjoyed the book but how much is history and how much
fanciful is anyone's guess. The setup is that Hilary
Hemingway on the death of her mother in 1997 of cancer opens
her safety deposit box and in an envelope marked for her
there is a tape of a backyard social gathering at the
Hemingway's. Hilary sticks the tape in her daughter's tape
player and hears the voice of her father Leicester Hemingway.
She also quickly recognizes the voice of Charles
Willeford.
"There was the deep laugh of Charlie Willeford--Uncle Charlie
was what my sister and I called him. Willeford was a Miami
novelist whom I remember most for his warm good cheer and
walrus mustache."
Also present is a professor that Willeford brought to the
gathering and he represents all the professors everywhere
mining the Hemingway vein. During the course of the tape
Leicester tells several stories about hunting adventures with
his brother Ernest. It is clear that some of these are
fanciful and the book does not presume otherwise.
I only receive the digest version of Rara so if Betsy has
weighed in with details of Charlie's friendship or
relationship with Leicester I won't know until the next
digest is sent out.
Richard Moore
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