Hemingway at Eighteen: The Pivotal Year That Launched an American Legend

Description

George Ehrlich Award Recipient In the summer of 1917, Ernest Hemingway was an eighteen-year-old high school graduate unsure of his future. The American entry into the Great War stirred thoughts of joining the army. While many of his friends in Oak Park, Illinois, were heading to college, Hemingway couldn't make up his mind and eventually chose to begin a career in writing and journalism at the Kansas City Star, one of the great newspapers of its day. In six and a half months at the Star, Hemingway experienced a compressed, streetwise alternative to a college education that opened his eyes to urban violence, the power of literature, the hard work of writing, and a constantly swirling stage of human comedy and drama. The Kansas City experience led Hemingway into the Red Cross ambulance service in Italy, where, two weeks before his nineteenth birthday, he was dangerously wounded at the front. Award-winning writer Steve Paul takes a measure of this pivotal year when Hemingway's self-invention and transformation began-from a "modest, rather shy and diffident boy" to a confident writer who aimed to find and record the truth throughout his life. Hemingway at Eighteen provides a fresh perspective on Hemingway's writing, sheds new light on this young man bound for greatness, and introduces anew a legendary American writer at the very beginning of his journey.

Steve Paul is an award-winning writer and editor who worked at the Kansas City Star for more than 40 years, including stints as book critic, arts editor, restaurant critic, and--before his retirement in early 2016--editorial page editor. He is a former board member of the National Book Critics Circle and the author (and photographer) of Architecture A to Z, the editor of Kansas City Noir, and coeditor of War + Ink: New Perspectives on Ernest Hemingway's Early Life and Writings.

"A remarkably fine, absolutely illuminating book." Scott Donaldson, author of Hemingway vs. Fitzgerald: The Rise and Fall of a Literary Friendship "Do we need another Hemingway biography? Absolutely, if it's as intelligent, insightful, and big hearted as Hemingway at Eighteen . This is a Hemingway few of us knowdazzlingly talented but still young, pulsing with ambition, and searching for his place in the literary world. Steve Paul has given us the origins of a legend." Candice Millard, author of The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey "In Hemingway at Eighteen , Steve Paul has given us an engaging and insightful work that shines a light on that crucial year in Hemingway's life, when he first tasted the world raw and the foundation of the famous prose style was laid at the Kansas City Star ." Daniel Woodrell, author of The Maid's Version and Winter's Bone "A delightful book, about a boy becoming a man, and a newspaper hack becoming one of our finest writers. Steve Paul's biography will surprise even those who thought there was nothing new to know about Ernest Hemingway." Rick Atkinson, author of An Army at Dawn "[A] clear, concise, sympathetic account of a gifted young man discovering who he is-and what he can do." Kirkus Reviews "Steve Paul, a master hand at the venerable newspaper where the young cub Ernest Hemingway got his start, here gives us a lively and fascinating account of a formative year in the life of a great writer." Richard Rhodes, author of the Pulitzer Prize--winning The Making of the Atomic Bomb "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." Booklist "Beginnings are important in literature and life. Steve Paul, one of the Kansas City Star 's own, has given us a thoughtful and lively account of a seminal year for Ernest Hemingway." Sean Hemingway, editor of The Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway: The Hemingway Library Edition