Everybody Behaves Badly
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35 “No amount of”: Fenton, Apprenticeship of Ernest Hemingway, 196.
35 “the Great Train Robbery”: St. John, “Interview with Hemingway’s ‘Bill Gorton,’” 175.
35 “lovely and loyal”: Ernest Hemingway, introduction to A Hemingway Check List, ed. Lee Samuels (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1951), 6.
35 “she had not”: Hotchner, Papa Hemingway, 160.
35 “Das Kapital”: Hemingway, introduction to Samuels, A Hemingway Check List, 6. In January 1923, Hemingway indicated to Ezra Pound that not even this material still existed: all that he had been able to recover at that point was “three pencil drafts of a bum poem,” some correspondence, and a few journalism carbons. Ernest Hemingway to Ezra Pound, January 23, 1923, reprinted in Defazio, Spanier, and Trogdon, Letters of Ernest Hemingway, 2:6.
35 “in a drawer”: Hemingway, A Moveable Feast, 69.
35 “I suppose you”: Ernest Hemingway to Ezra Pound, January 23, 1923, reprinted in Defazio, Spanier, and Trogdon, Letters of Ernest Hemingway, 2:6.
35 “act of Gawd”: Ezra Pound, undated reply, excerpted in Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters, 1917–1961, ed. Carlos Baker (New York: Scribner, 2003), 77.
35 “it was probably”: Hemingway, A Moveable Feast, 70. At least one of his contemporaries deemed the loss of Hemingway’s “Juvenilia” to be a fortuitous event; some experts today agree. The theft was “the best thing that ever happened to him,” states Hemingway Society co-founder Allen Josephs (interview with the author, April 1, 2014). Hemingway scholar H. R. Stoneback believes that if the material hadn’t been lost, Hemingway’s early work “would all look like ‘My Old Man,’ which really sounds like Sherwood Anderson” (interview with the author, June 2, 2014).
36 “I know what”: Ernest Hemingway to Ezra Pound, November 8, 1922, reprinted in Spanier and Trogdon, Letters of Ernest Hemingway, 1:369.
36 “I could see already”: Hemingway, “The Strange Country,” 650.
36 He was working hard: Ernest Hemingway to Gertrude Stein, February 18, 1923, reprinted in Defazio, Spanier, and Trogdon, Letters of Ernest Hemingway, 2:11.
36 happiest in bed: Biographer Carlos Baker quotes from an “undated fragment on sheets” but designates it a “ca. Feb., 1923” Rapallo writing (Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story, 106, 580). The fragment is also excerpted in Reynolds, Hemingway: The Paris Years, 104.
37 “He came to”: Stein, Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, 213.
37 relayed her amusement: Sokoloff, Hadley, 61.
37 salary of $125: In 1923 dollars, $125 a week is equal to around $1,700 today—a salary of $88,000 a year.
37 “I want, like”: Ernest Hemingway to Edward O’Brien, May 21, 1923, reprinted in Defazio, Spanier, and Trogdon, Letters of Ernest Hemingway, 2:21. O’Brien, the editor of The Best Short Stories anthologies, published annually, obliged Hemingway’s wish to “get published” by including “My Old Man” in The Best Short Stories of 1923.
37 “who seem not”: McAlmon published an announcement detailing the press’s mission in the expat publication the transatlantic review, which Sylvia Beach reproduced in her memoir. He added: “Three hundred only of each book will be printed. These books are published simply because they are written, and we like them well enough to get them out.” Beach, Shakespeare and Company, 130–31.
37 literary luminaries: There were also less lofty names associated with Contact Publishing, and some of McAlmon’s authors were found via admittedly casual means. According to Sylvia Beach, “manuscripts were submitted to McAlmon at the Dôme Café, and he told me that he discovered most of his writers at one café or another.” Ibid., 132.
37 “small-boy, tough-guy swagger”: McAlmon, Being Geniuses Together, 157.
37 Like Pound, McAlmon: The Kansas-born McAlmon had a reputation on two continents for being, as writer Kay Boyle put it, “wild and daring and as hard as nails.” Ibid., 23. He was, Sylvia Beach recalled, “certainly the most popular member of the Crowd . . . [W]hatever café or bar McAlmon patronized at the moment was the one where you saw everybody” (Shakespeare and Company, 403).
37 “When Bob McAlmon”: Callaghan, That Summer in Paris, 132.
38 a British heiress: McAlmon’s wife was Winifred Ellerman, a poet and novelist who wrote under the pen name “Bryher.” She was the daughter of a wealthy shipping magnate, Sir John Ellerman. Like McAlmon, she was homosexual; it was well known that she had a long-term relationship with the poet H.D. (Hilda Doolittle). Another source of McAlmon’s income, at least according to expat writer John Dos Passos, was writing “smutty poems” for a German magazine called Der Querschnitt. John Dos Passos, The Best Times (New York: Signet Books, 1968), 163.
38 “an older person”: McAlmon, Being Geniuses Together, 158.
38 “given us the”: Ernest Hemingway to Ezra Pound, March 10, 1923, reprinted in Defazio, Spanier, and Trogdon, Letters of Ernest Hemingway, 2:14.
38 “sneers and open”: Callaghan, That Summer in Paris, 81; universally liked: Karen L. Rood, “William Bird,” in Dictionary of Literary Biography, vol. 4, American Writers in Paris, 1920–1939, ed. Karen Lane Rood (Detroit: Bruccoli Clark, 1980), 39.
38 “I called [it]”: Alice B. Toklas, What Is Remembered (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1963), 70–71.
39 “The first matador”: Ernest Hemingway, in our time (Paris: Three Mountains Press, 1924), chap. 2.
39 “Beery-poppa”: McAlmon, Being Geniuses Together, 160.
39 “He tenderly explained”: Ibid.
40 “in hysteria: Ibid., 161.
40 “It’s a great”: Ernest Hemingway to William Horne, July 17–18, 1923, reprinted in Defazio, Spanier, and Trogdon, Letters of Ernest Hemingway, 2:36.
40 an instant expert: Bill Bird to Carlos Baker, June 1962, quoted in Baker, Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story, 110.
40 “If there’s ever”: Ernest Hemingway to Clarence Hemingway, June 20, 1923, reprinted in Defazio, Spanier, and Trogdon, Letters of Ernest Hemingway, 2:24.
40 he insulted him: Bill Bird told Carlos Baker that Hemingway was actually “outrageously insulting” in a June 1962 interview, quoted in Baker, Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story, 111. Others from the Paris Crowd would also voice indignation over Hemingway’s reported treatment of McAlmon. “All the bills were paid by Bob, of course,” wrote Kay Boyle, “but when a choice of seats came up at a bullfight, Hem would . . . have to have the one good seat left, down by the ring, because he was ‘studying the art of it,’ while Bob[,] . . . not knowing anything, I suppose, about art in any shape or form, could just as well sit in the bleachers.” She added that the Johnnie Walker scotch Hemingway consumed had also gone on McAlmon’s tab. McAlmon, Being Geniuses Together, 313.
40 a poseur: Hemingway would write in his 1932 book Death in the Afternoon that McAlmon clearly believed that his love of bullfighting was feigned.
41 “If the writer”: Hemingway, Death in the Afternoon, 192.
41 near-literal translation: Ernest Hemingway to F. Scott Fitzgerald, December 24, 1925, reprinted in Defazio, Spanier, and Trogdon, Letters of Ernest Hemingway, 2:455.
41 “drunk of a”: Ibid.
41 “didnt think the”: Ibid.
41 “Your ear is”: Ibid.
41 Three Mountains Press: The three peaks referenced in the name of Bill Bird’s publishing house were the three “mountains” of Paris: Sainte- Geneviève, Montparnasse, and Montmartre.
42 “uglyish wads of”: Ford Madox Ford, quoted in Rood, “William Bird,” 39. In Three Mountains’ Quai d’Anjou printing headquarters, there was room for only the handpress and printer-editor himself, Sylvia Beach recalled, requiring Bird to take all meetings outside on the sidewalk (Shakespeare and Company, 132). Writer and editor Ford Madox Ford, who later shared this space—recalled that Bird stashed his printed books in a makeshift kitchen. Ford Madox Ford, It Was the Nightingale (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1933), 322.
42 teamed up with: According to one source, Hemingway had played a ro
le in making the Bird-Pound match. Bird had first mentioned his new press to Hemingway when they met while traveling to the Conferenza Internazionale Economica de Genova in April 1922, and “Hemingway suggested that Ezra Pound might allow Bird to print out part of a long poem he was writing. Bird went to see Pound, and Pound suggested instead that Bird publish a series of six books. As Bird wrote to one biographer in 1956, ‘He said the thing to do was to have a series of books that went together, and not just print things as they came along.’” Rood, “William Bird,” 39–40. Bird later claimed that he, not McAlmon, was to have been Hemingway’s first book publisher, but Hemingway had grown too impatient about being the final installment of the “inquest” series and prioritized giving material to McAlmon, who promised a quicker turnaround. Ibid., 40.
42 series of vignettes: Neither McAlmon nor Bird appears to have tried to talk Hemingway into writing a novel or other long-form work for these initial collaborations.
42 “We were in”: Hemingway, in our time, chap. 4.
43 “5 days of”: Ernest Hemingway to William Horne, July 17–18, 1923, reprinted in Defazio, Spanier, and Trogdon, Letters of Ernest Hemingway, 2:36.
43 “embroidering in the”: Sokoloff, Hadley, 63.
43 “I like the”: Ernest Hemingway to Robert McAlmon, August 5, 1923, reprinted in Defazio, Spanier, and Trogdon, Letters of Ernest Hemingway, 2:39.
44 “It couldn’t be”: Ernest Hemingway to Ezra Pound, ca. September 6–8, 1923, reprinted ibid., 45.
44 “He couldn’t walk”: Callaghan, That Summer in Paris, 26.
44 “I’ve discovered a”: Ernest Hemingway, quoted in Baker, Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story, 121; “Ezra Pound says”: Callaghan, That Summer in Paris, 30.
44 “I can still”: Callaghan, That Summer in Paris, 26.
44 “driven to break”: Ibid., 23.
44 “busy galloping around”: Ibid., 25.
44 “piddling, just junk”: Morley Callaghan, quoted in Fenton, Apprenticeship of Ernest Hemingway, 246.
45 “greatly overworked”: Hadley Hemingway to Grace Hemingway, September 27, 1923, quoted in Sokoloff, Hadley, 63.
45 “You may save”: Ernest Hemingway to Ezra Pound, ca. September 6, 1923, reprinted in Defazio, Spanier, and Trogdon, Letters of Ernest Hemingway, 2:46.
45 “hated all things”: Kreymborg, Troubadour, 369; “Tomato, Can”: Fenton, Apprenticeship of Ernest Hemingway, 246.
45 killed off ten years: According to biographer Carlos Baker, Hemingway reportedly made this remark to “the paper’s girl reporter” Mary Lowrey (Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story, 119).
45 “kill my Tiny”: Hadley Hemingway to Isabel Simmons, October 13, 1923, quoted in Sokoloff, Hadley, 67.
45 “go through the”: Ernest Hemingway to Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, October 11, 1923, reprinted in Defazio, Spanier, and Trogdon, Letters of Ernest Hemingway, 2:54; “utter contempt”: Ernest Hemingway to Ezra Pound, October 13, 1923, reprinted ibid., 58.
45 named their seven-pound baby: Had the baby been a girl, Hemingway informed Sylvia Beach, she would have been named Sylvia. Ernest Hemingway to Sylvia Beach, November 6, 1923, box 22, Sylvia Beach Papers, Princeton University Library.
45 “As it includes”: Hadley Hemingway to Grace Hemingway, October 5, 1923, quoted in Sokoloff, Hadley, 66.
45 “just when we”: Hadley Hemingway to Isabel Simmons, October 13, 1923, quoted ibid., 67.
45 a shot stomach: Ernest Hemingway to Ezra Pound, October 13, 1923, reprinted in Defazio, Spanier, and Trogdon, Letters of Ernest Hemingway, 2:58.
45 a waking nightmare: Ernest Hemingway to Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, ibid., 54–55.
46 “I’ll get on”: Ernest Hemingway to Sylvia Beach, November 6, 1923, box 22, Sylvia Beach Papers, Princeton University Library.
46 “dry inside his”: Ernest Hemingway, sketch published fall 1923, quoted in Baker, Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story, 120.
46 revenge novel: For an account of this “abortive novel,” see Fenton, Apprenticeship of Ernest Hemingway, 242. Charles Fenton, who interviewed some of Hemingway’s Star colleagues from this period, writes that Hemingway “discussed on several occasions the possibilities of a satiric novel” about Hindmarsh and adds that Hemingway later discussed his reasoning behind abandoning the novel with another unnamed “Toronto colleague.”
46 “too fussy”: Hadley Hemingway to Sylvia Beach, November 1923, box 22, Sylvia Beach Papers, Princeton University Library.
46 “if it hadn’t”: Callaghan, That Summer in Paris, 22–23.
4. Let the Pressure Build
47 “very gentle buzzing”: Hadley Hemingway to Grace Hemingway, February 20, 1924, quoted in Sokoloff, Hadley, 69.
47 “The marble-topped tables”: Hemingway, A Moveable Feast, 169.
47 “Nobody ever threw”: MacLeish, Reflections, 26–27.
48 “blind pig”: Hemingway, A Moveable Feast, 81.
48 “You rotten son”: Ibid., 170.
48 “marvelous”: Cowley, A Second Flowering, 58.
49 “Burton Rascoe said”: Ernest Hemingway to Ezra Pound, July 19, 1924, reprinted in Defazio, Spanier, and Trogdon, Letters of Ernest Hemingway, 2:135.
49 “It was my”: Hotchner, Papa Hemingway, 38.
49 Bumby slept: The baby-in-the-dresser-drawer rumor comes courtesy of Honoria Donnelly (née Murphy), daughter of expats Sara and Gerald Murphy, who were to become a vital presence in the Hemingways’ lives the following year: “The Hemingways’ son, John, or Bumby, I was told, had to sleep in a dresser drawer.” Donnelly, Sara & Gerald, 15.
49 “The one who”: Hemingway, A Moveable Feast, 42.
49 Hadley burst into: Sokoloff, Hadley, 73. Sokoloff reports that Hadley had become “self-concious” about her clothes but not to the point of accepting such gifts.
50 “short-lived, alas!”: Beach, Shakespeare and Company, 137.
50 transatlantic review: Lowercase titles were apparently something of a vogue among the literary set during this time, although Ford later claimed that he had “merely seen the name of a shop somewhere on the Boulevard without capital letters and had rather liked the effect.” The fact that it coincided with the lowercase poetry of E. E. Cummings was a coincidence, Ford said, although he claimed that a “great sensation” was made of it: “We were suspected of beheading initial letters as if they had been kings.” Ford, It Was the Nightingale, 324.
50 “I had never”: McAlmon, Being Geniuses Together, 116.
50 “Oh Canada”: Ernest Hemingway to Ezra Pound, December 9, 1923, reprinted in Defazio, Spanier, and Trogdon, Letters of Ernest Hemingway, 2:82.
50 shadowboxing: Ford actually recalled that Hemingway “shadowdanced,” but that has usually been interpreted by biographers as shadowboxing. Ford, It Was the Nightingale, 323; finest prose stylist: Baker, Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story, 123.
50 wicked Hemingway parody: Ford would, in the decades to follow, be sent up in at least two Hemingway books, The Sun Also Rises and A Moveable Feast, once under a pseudonym and once under his own name; the latter is the far crueler of the two portrayals.
50 “the toast under”: Rebecca West, quoted in Elizabeth Mahoney, “Radio Review: Ford Madox Ford and France,” The Guardian, August 25, 2010.
51 “He was always”: Anderson, Sherwood Anderson’s Memoirs, 479.
51 espouse his own genius: “On one occasion Ford assured me that he was a genius, that he was born of a family of geniuses and [raised] in the tradition of a genius,” recalled Robert McAlmon (Being Geniuses Together, 116).
51 “Publishers and editors”: Anderson, Sherwood Anderson’s Memoirs, 479.
51 “Ford was blessed”: Harold Loeb, The Way It Was (New York: Criterion Books, 1959), 203. Furthermore, Ford’s asthma apparently made him almost impossible to understand even when he was telling the truth. Bartender and “father confessor” of the Left Bank, Jimmie Charters, recalled that once, while presenting a poetry award, “Ford made a speech of presentation that was c
ompletely unintelligible, sounding something like ‘woof-woof and . . . aaaah . . . woof-woofus . . . who . . . whhhhhh . . . aaaaaah . . . whoof-whhhhhhhhhh!’” Charters, This Must Be the Place, 39.
51 “He described the”: Anderson, Sherwood Anderson’s Memoirs, 479–80.
51 lied about money: Hemingway, A Moveable Feast, 199.
51 “fouler . . . than the”: Ibid., 201.
51 “He comes and”: Stein, Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, 220.
52 “I did not”: Ford, It Was the Nightingale, 323.
52 “a figure in”: Dos Passos, The Best Times, 172.
52 “I was finally”: Hotchnher, Papa Hemingway, 57.
52 “That attitude”: Baker, Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story, 126.
52 “I knew”: Hemingway, A Moveable Feast, 71.
53 “I would put”: Ibid.
53 “it was more”: Beach, Shakespeare and Company, 137.
53 “Famished beginners”: Kathleen Cannell, “Essay II on Ford Madox Ford,” Providence Sunday Journal, September 20, 1964, reprinted in Sarason, Hemingway and the Sun Set, 263.
53 an amusing portrait: Sokoloff, Hadley, 72.
53 “had a shy”: Loeb, The Way It Was, 190.
53 “poverty-stricken Bohemian”: Ibid., 10.
54 “Harold,” he said: Ibid., 18.
54 “seemed to burn”: Ibid., 4. In 1912, $50,000 was the equivalent of around $1.2 million today.
54 “tended to repeat”: Ibid., 6.
54 “disapproval of the”: Harold Loeb, untitled essay, Broom Correspondence of Harold Loeb, Princeton University Library.
55 “with a newly”: Loeb, The Way It Was, 229. Loeb was quick to point out that he was not a mega-rich Guggenheim, for he had blossomed on a poor-relation branch of the family tree, meaning that his mother Rose Guggenheim’s “pearls were smaller than those of her sisters-in-law, her dresses less numerous, her horses not so thoroughly bred,” as he put it. Ibid., 20. That said, according to one of her granddaughters, Rose still “slept in satin sheets under a portrait of herself.” Barbara Loeb Kennedy, interview with the author, May 7, 2014.