The Ambulance Drivers: Hemingway, Dos Passos, and a Friendship Made and Lost in War

Description

Rich in evocative detail--from Paris cafes to Austrian chateaus, from the streets of Pamplona to the waters of Key West--THE AMBULANCE DRIVERS tells the story of two aspiring writers, Ernest Hemingway and John Dos Passos, who met in World War I and forged a twenty-year friendship that produced some of America's greatest novels, giving voice to a generation shaken by war. In war, Hemingway found adventure, women, and a cause. Dos Passos saw only oppression and futility. Their different visions eventually turned their private friendship into a nasty public fight, fueled by money, jealousy, and lust. This is not only a biography of the turbulent friendship between two of the century's greatest writers but also an illustration of how war inspires and destroys, unites and divides.

James McGrath Morris is the author of several critically acclaimed biographies, including the New York Times bestselling Eye on the Struggle: Ethel Payne, The First Lady of the Black Press and Pulitzer: A Life in Politics, Print, and Power. He has appeared on NPR's All Things Considered, PBS's News Hour, and C-Span's Book TV. He was the founding editor of the monthly Biographer's Craft and has served as both the executive director and president of Biographers International Organization (BIO). Morris lives in Tesuque, New Mexico.

[Morris] does a good job of identifying the differences in the two men's novel-writing styles and in the audiences they cultivated...One comes away from this book wanting to read or reread Dos Passos...Recommended. --Choice The Ambulance Drivers is an exciting, revealing, important book that evokes a fascinating era. It shows us Hemingway in a new perspective and, equally important, gives Dos Passos the major attention that he indisputably deserves.--David Morrell, New York Times bestselling author of Murder as a Fine Art The Ambulance Drivers is one of those rare and gratifying books that seamlessly drops gems of insight on history, art, and politics into a taut and suspenseful story of one of the great literary friendships of the twentieth century.--Debby Applegate, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Most Famous Man in America [An] illuminating examination of the relationship between two great American writers.--Terry Fallis, Toronto Globe and Mail [An] unknown story about two great American authors...Absorbing...James McGrath Morris brings us a new saga in the ever-fascinating world of Ernest Hemingway.--Berkshire Eagle [A] highly entertaining biography of a decades-long and often rivalrous literary friendship. --Santa Fe New Mexican A fascinating story of the friendship between literary giants...A great telling of their struggles and of what led to their successes. --San Francisco Book Review A superb examination of the bond that helped shape the modern literary movement in America...A fascinating read that will satisfy specialized scholars and general audiences alike with its careful research and highly readable narrative. The book offers more than straight biography of two of the 20th century's most important American authors-it intertwines selections from works they were producing at significant points in their lives...Morris is masterful in his weaving of the Hemingway and Dos Passos timelines...Morris is adept at making the historical record lifelike, giving a palpable sense of the climate in which these modern writers were forged...Thoughtful and engaging...The Ambulance Drivers will do for Hemingway criticism what Scott Donaldson's vigorous Hemingway and Fitzgerald: The Rise and Fall of a Literary Friendship did in 1999: offer a complete post-mortem analysis of a critically important friendship that had a part in shaping a literary movement.--Washington Independent Review of Books A well-researched book made all the more helpful by copious notes and a good bibliography. For Hemingway and Dos Passos fans, this will be a must-read...A compelling examination of an at-times frail, turbulent and broken friendship.--Army Ancestry Research blog Compelling and insightful...Morris's extensive research on his two subjects is evident...While it's easy for some biographies to be bogged down in details and facts, The Ambulance Drivers is a fluid, engrossing read. --Portland Book Review Deftly catches the essence of the duo's mercurial relationship-and the events that led to the destruction of their friendship...[A] multifaceted book.--Idaho Statesman Delves head first into the mercurial relationship of these two American literary legends...Throughout this riveting biography Morris expertly narrates the journeys, relationships, and life-changing events that inspired two of the greatest authors of the 20th century...A lively and engaging biography that takes a fresh look at the life of Dos Passos....Although readers may at first hesitate to embark on yet another analysis of Ernest Hemingway, Morris' framing of the context of his fragile and contemptuous relationship with fellow literary giant John Dos Passos creates a worthwhile read. It will most certainly fascinate Dos Passos and Hemingway aficionados, as well as the casual literary biography enthusiast. --New York Journal of Books Dos Passos gets his due in James McGrath Morris' The Ambulance Drivers...A well-written and interesting book about an interesting time and two very interesting writers.--Washington Times Extremely well-researched, The Ambulance Drivers is the tale of two American writers whose work was affected heavily by the angels and demons of a lost generation that conspired to put them at odds.--Chico News & Review Full of historical and personal details.--Dallas Morning News Here is a story of war, love, and politics writ large, a story of two literary lions trapped in a double-helix relationship more powerful than either will admit. In this intricately braided dual biography, Morris shows us how the two novelists needed each other, even as they differed--often drastically so--in the way they negotiated the gravitational forces of their times.--Hampton Sides, bestselling author of In the Kingdom of Ice and Ghost Soldiers In this ingenious dual narrative, James McGrath Morris gives us two lives in high contrast, rendering sharp, revelatory portraits of literary icons we thought we already knew. Writing with deep knowledge and sympathy, Morris has created something rare and fresh: a biography of a friendship.--Megan Marshall, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Margaret Fuller and Elizabeth Bishop: A Miracle for Breakfast Intimate, vivid, and humane, The Ambulance Drivers propels readers through the intersecting lives of two of our greatest writers. Never have Ernest Hemingway and John Dos Passos seemed so real or so important as in James McGrath Morris's account of their passage through the Great War and the rise of fascism.--T.J. Stiles, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Custer's Trials James McGrath Morris is to be commended for doing something unusual and highly necessary in his book...Rather than merely recycle aspects or elements of the all-too-familiar Hemingway legend, what Morris has done is focus with superlative intent on recapitulating how the First World War galvanized the coming-of-age of young Hemingway.--HoneySuckle Magazine James McGrath Morris jettisons most of the minutiae necessary in a normal biography and the result reads more like a novel than a biography. The protagonist is a self-effacing writer, John Dos Passos, and the antagonist a demon-ridden artist, Ernest Hemingway. Morris lets the chips fall where they may.--Buffalo News James McGrath Morris looks closely at the difficult friendship of Hemingway and Dos Passos.--Elaine Showalter, New York Times Morris provides a unique perspective by narrating the two authors' life experiences in a way that all veterans can relate to after returning home with the scars of war...This book is a must for anyone with interest in the early portions of the 1900s and how the 'Great World' and the 'war to end all wars' shaped the world we live in today. Morris does an outstanding job of relating the real-life experiences of the two main characters throughout the book to lay the ground work for further investigation of Hemingway's and Dos Passos's written works. --Military Review Morris tugs the reader into the boozy, bitchy world of his protagonists. Famous friends bustle in and out...As readable as a novel.--The Economist Morris writes like an expressionist painter, evoking the essence of Hemingway and Dos Passos's hard-drinking writing life in Paris, Madrid, and Key West. The Ambulance Drivers is a deft and classy literary adventure, infused with wine, beautiful women, and genuine pathos.--Kai Bird, Pulitzer Prize-winning coauthor of American Prometheus Morris's evocative writing and finely tuned research brings alive the richness of the past--the thronging cafes of Paris, the mortared trenches of Italy, the bullfights of Pamplona, the sun-bleached houses of Key West--as well as the complex personalities of these two great American writers. A tragic story, beautifully written and compulsively readable.--Douglas Preston, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Lost City of the Monkey God Relates in impressive detail the friendship and falling out between two idealistic men whose lives were changed and careers launched while in the trenches. --EMS World The book ostensibly focuses on their work as ambulance drivers, picking up and transporting badly wounded and dead soldiers, but it also presents the following years of their lives: their inspirations, their relationships, their successes, their failures. --Curled Up with a Good Book The story of the close yet volatile friendship between John Dos Passos and Ernest Hemingway...[A] lively biography of their relationship...A welcome new look at Dos Passos and another sad chapter in the life of Hemingway. --Kirkus Reviews The story of Hemingway and Dos Passos is as exciting as any of their novels...A quick-paced narrative that weaves back and forth between the two men's lives...A riveting and rollicking good read...Sanitizing any dry academic influences, [McGrath Morris] pares his subjects down to an essence that makes them seem real...The book is hard to put down, and leaves us feeling closer to these two remarkable men...There's no doubting that the lives of this generation of writers forms every bit as important a part of their story as the books they produced. The Ambulance Drivers offers a delightful and entertaining entry into that world.--Popmatters Trim and absorbing.--Washington Post Two of the most significant writers of their generation, John Dos Passos and Ernest Hemingway, are described by Morris in his evocative, lively volume about how differently they emerged from the crucible of WWI...Morris's narrative demonstrates how, despite jealousies and differences, the two men found common ground...Dos Passos will be the less recognizable name to most readers, and Morris does a great service by reinserting him into the picture of post-WWI American writers. --Publishers Weekly Unusual and highly necessary...The value of this important new biography is that we are reminded of how much has been lost-for decades-as the Hemingway Industry stayed in overdrive, while the great and good works of John Dos Passos were gradually consigned to oblivion...We have lost a great deal by not paying more attention to the life and work of John Dos Passos. This new book helps us to rectify that error...Hemingway will always be important. But the most important thing about this new biography is that it reminds us that reading John Dos Passos is even more essential. --Neworld Review With a clear, direct narrative...James McGrath Morris offers insight into what brought these writers together and what tore them apart. An eye for telling detail makes the postwar world come alive for readers...[Morris] brings these writers to life. --New Mexico Magazine