Customer Reviews

Hunting with Hemingway: Based on the Stories of Leicester Hemingway

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I picked this book up at a local bookstore. I've never read anything by Hemingway (that I remember, anyway), so I thought I'd give it a shot. I couldn't believe the treasure I'd found! I've been lucky enough to travel a bit..through India, northern Europe and some of the Bahamas, and this book just made me ache for more travel. I couldn't put it down! I didn't read anyone else's review, because I didn't want it to taint my own, so here's the scenario: Ernest's brother's daughter (Ernest's niece) has a cassette of her father telling tales, in breathtaking precision and detail, of his hunting expeditions with his brother Ernest. This tape comes to her after her mother's death, and she is swept up in the emotions of hearing her father's voice and sharing the experience with her own family. I'm not a huge hunting buff, but this book showed a respect for life unlike what I've seen in many others. The way a place is described...a taste...a moment...it's difficult to read this and not imagine yourself exactly in the moment. I spent hours curled up in a papasan chair on my sun porch, transported and lost in Africa, India, on the seas...I can't praise it enough. It was breathtaking. I have just this morning started reading "True At First Light", hoping it will captivate me the way the other has done.

When her beloved mother died from cancer, she left Hilary with a cassette tape that recorded the musings of her long dead father, Leicester "Baron" Hemingway, Ernest's younger brother. The tape contained stories of the alleged exploits of Baron and Papa as they hunted game mostly in Africa. Hilary, her spouse Jeffrey, and their daughter Bear begin a quest to determine whether the stories are genuine or just tall tales from an excellent storyteller.

Even if a reader is not a Hemingway fan, they will absolutely enjoy HUNTING WITH HEMINGWAY because Baron's tales are entertaining and fun short stories. Whether the stories are true, hyperbole, or totally made-up, the insight into the relationship between Baron and his deep admiration and respect for Papa, who returns his sibling's love, humanizes one of the literary legends. Toss in Hilary's quest in search of her elusive father makes this one of the best anthology collections of the year.

Harriet Klausner

Why isn't this excellent Kirkus review listed on your site along with the less-than-favorable ones from Publishers Weekly and Library Journal? Here's what Kirkus has to say:

Hemingway and Lindsay (Dreamland,1998) carry the Hemingway traditions of hunting family, and storytelling into the new millennium.

After her mother's death in 1997, Hilary, the daughter of Ernest's younger brother Leicester inherits an audiocassette. On the tape is a recording of a fireside story telling session given by Leicester who had committed suicide 15 years earlier. Hilary transcribes these tales she has never heard before, weaving them with the chatter of his fireside companions and with her own feelings and the result is a book that rejoices in the simple beauty of a story. A huntsman and writer like his brother, Leicester describes adventures that he and Ernest experienced around the globe-with tales of nighttime crocodile hunts and slim escapes from stone- throwing baboons. Together, Leicester and his brother-often his savior-make a dynamic duo, and his tales are awesome, admirable, and a bit incredible. The pair escapes vicious packs of cannibal dogs, kills a king cobra, captures wild ostriches in Africa, and slays a Komodo dragon in the Far East. Or do they? As Hilary, Lindsay and their daughters listen to the recording, they just can't decide whether these are true stories or tall tales. Here, the story becomes a personal and touching one as well. Leicester Hemingway chose "the family exit" rather than suffer a double amputation make necessary by his diabetes. Hearing her father's stories helps Hilary finally mourn his loss and gain a new perspective on her family tradition.

Hilary honors her father and celebrates her family legacy with this collection of fantastic hunting stories.

This book was a joy to read. The tales are basically told by Leicester as they were recorded on an old casette tape. The man is pulling your leg so just go with it and enjoy yourself. In the end you will find that the book is not about Ernest at all. It is about a daughter coming to terms with the passing of her beloved father. If you gain nothing more from reading this book than learning that Leicester was a fantastic storyteller then it is time well spent.

My husband and I and two of our friends, which we bought a copy for each of their birthdays, have all agreed that this is a wonderful book with some surprises, some whimsy and also found the love of the Hemingway family was much like our own families. Ms. Hemingway and Mr. Lindsay have a winner.

It's pretty clear that Les embellished or invented many of these stories from the guffaws and proddings of various admirerers, but still, these stories make for entertaining reading. I was less excited about the "coming to terms" aspects of the story as narrated by Hillary and her husband, but that's a minor gripe. The stories sound authentic or at least are in keeping with what Hemingway WOULD have done had he been there. So even if no one could prove Hemingway went to India, the snake/tiger story is still a heck of a tale.

I read it on a plane in under 2 hours and it goes by fast. Not as elegant as Hemingway's actual novels, but good fodder for the enthusiast.

I was given this book. I think it is well written and in an interesting manner. It is woven in a way that makes it hard to tellif its fact or fiction. It is a quick read with lots of good stories complied into one.

Just a bunch of made-up tall tales, allegedly based on a mysterious tape recording uncovered by the author after her parents' death. The tape is probably the biggest tall tale of them all. If you're interested in facts, skip this one. Sorry I wasted my money.

This is a delightful book. Don't let the boorish reviews from Publishers Weekly and Library Journal (listed here on Amazon) mislead you. It's a charming story.

Its too bad Leicester Hemingway did not mine his own life for stories. I've never been able to find anything written by him other than "My Brother, Ernest Hemingway," and that was a fairly average read. Other than some insights and background it possessed to which only Leicester might ever have been privy it wasn't particularly noteworthy. Still, that book did hint that the talent in the family stretched beyond Ernest, and now Hilary Hemingway comes along to prove that fact.

This book has been attacked in some quarters as being pure fiction and, unfortunately, Hilary destroyed the only evidence that might have help prove that the source of the many tales therein was indeed her father, Leicester Hemingway. The tales recounted within are reputedly those left behind by her father on an audiocassette. But Hilary destroyed the only copy which is, admittedly odd, given that the tapes also apparently helped her to come to terms with her relationship with her father.

Hilary came into possession of the tape some fifteen years after her father commited suicide, a suicide which further added to the tragedy and myth of mental illness leading to suicide being an inherited trait in the family. Leicester was prompted to commit suicide when he lost his legs to diabetes. Hilary stuggled for years to forgive him.

This book recounts both stories of her father's adventuring (some with his more famous brother, Ernest, and some on his own)and the story of the process of how she came to grips with her father's decision to commit suicide. It is a book both about her father's life and her personal process of healing after his death. As we see in reading this book, which is actually relatively short, Hilary is a very talented writer. Although I should point out her husband, Jeffrey Lindsay, was a co-author on this book so where Hilary's work begins and ends is not certain.

Regardless, its a very compelling read whether the stories of her father are fiction or not. Frankly, most of them sound very plausible (a few do stretch the limits of credibility) and I guess we will just have to take her word that Leicester did indeed leave a recording containing these stories.

I only hope we have not heard the last from Hilary Hemingway because she appears to have a true talent for writing.