Influencing Hemingway: People and Places That Shaped His Life and Work

Sindelar highlights the people, settings, and scenes that Hemingway immortalized in his literature. These events range from watching his father assist with childbirth at an Indian reservation, which became the short story “Indian Camp,” to his experiences in WWI and the Spanish Civil War, which inspired A Farewell to Arms and For Whom the Bell Tolls. The book also aims to elucidate Hemingway’s values and moral code. Many of the same anecdotes crop up repeatedly, such as young Ernest’s declaration to his mother at age three that he was “afraid of nothing!” Another oft-emphasized catchphrase is “grace under pressure,” a tenant which Hemingway embraced to the point of forbidding his brother to cry at their father’s funeral. The book’s pacing doesn’t emphasize any one fact or work in particular, making the recitation monotonous, though informative. Perhaps because Sindelar is a board member of the Ernest Hemingway Foundation of Oak Park, she presupposes a considerable familiarity with Hemingway’s work and particulars of his life that readers may not share. However, the book can serve as a useful resource for Hemingway fans interested in learning more about the facts behind his fiction. Photos. (June)