Run with the Bull: Hemingway in My Life

Author: (Ireland) Valerie Hemingway
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-01-01
Features: Listen, a woman connected to the fate of Hemingway's father and son. At 19, Valerie of Ireland entered Hemingway's life two years before his death. She was his private secretary and also his confidante. At his funeral, she met his youngest son, Gregory. Five years later, she married him and had four children. However, their 21-year marriage ultimately broke apart when her husband transformed into "Gloria." Valerie, with concise and sharp words, portrays the mysterious final years of Hemingway's life, evoking pity for those days. In Cuba, Valerie lived a quiet and leisurely life, tirelessly typing the final manuscript of The Journey of Life. Even when Castro's revolution was on the brink of starting, she didn't support it with a knife. After Hemingway shot himself, she and his widow returned to Cuba to organize thousands of pages of manuscripts. When Valerie was an investigator for Newsweek, she met Hemingway's son, Gregory—again at his funeral. This encounter can be said to have completely changed the course of her life. As her husband could no longer escape the demons that had tormented him since childhood and ultimately gave up resistance, she was helpless to do anything about it, and their 21-year marriage ended. From lunch with Orson Welles to the mysterious serenade brought by a midnight folk singer, from an unforgettable rooftop encounter with Castro to tireless nights spent in the hospital, she played an indispensable intimate role in the lives of two generations of the Hemingway family. This biography is both captivating and profoundly enlightening, extremely, it narrates Valerie's joys, sorrows, and struggles as a member of the Hemingway family.