I Killed Hemingway

by William McCranor Henderson

Book Overview

Was Ernest Hemingway a plagiarist? And was his suicide, in fact, a cold-blooded murder? So says "Pappy" Markham of Key West, an irascible old derelict with a sixty-year grudge against his alleged pal... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312088167
• ISBN13: 9780312088163
• Release Date: January 1993
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Length: 313 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.8" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Deliciously further your love/hate Hemingway affair!

Damn good book! Henderson masterfully epitomizes the academic love/hate relationship that must occur between the failed scholar and the great author. The protagonist, Elliot McGuire, does an excellent job of self-antagonizing over his near miss with greatness as a Hemingway scholar. McGuire believes he has finally overcome his past and wants to publish a book of his own about his new form of therapy and empowerment -- "LifeForms". McGuire's publisher lays waste to his dreams of pop psychology. Eric "Pappy" Markham claims to have killed Ernest Hemingway and has sent off a badly written 5 page teaser, outlining details of the supposed murder and claiming the reasoning behind it was that everything Hemingway had ever been was because of Pappy. McGuire's publisher can't wait to put the book (a guaranteed best selling biography!) on the market and sends him down to edit. We'll just say that "editting" takes on a whole new meaning while Pa! ppy sets off McGuire's "Hemophobia" and other bleaker aspects....Henderson manages to take a poke at every aspect of popular culture, from best-sellers to TV talk shows to academic elitism. I found it all to be wickedly on the money. A must read!

Forget your Inner Child! Embrace Your Inner Hemingway!

This is simply great stuff. Henderson's protagonist, Eliot McGuire, is a recovering Hemingway scholar/alcoholic, and he's not only fallen, he's plummeted off the wagon on both counts. Stuck in the quagmire of negotiations with his publishing company for his barely cohesive life-improvement system, LifeForms, Eliot, hoping to sneak his way into their good graces, opts to do the company a quick favor by flying down to Key West to bid on the tell-all memoir by one "Pappy" Markham, a shadowy figure of the "Lost Generation" set, who claims that Hemingway died not by his own hand but rather by Pappy's shotgun, payback for plagaristic treachery supposedly committed by Hemingway long ago. Eliot soon finds that the supposed manuscript is no longer than a page, and takes the opportunity to ghostwrite this doubtful story for a quick buck. Henderson realizes the synergistic possibilities of his themes (the way men treat each other, the way the publishing world seems to mistreat everyone, the way everyone has treated Hemingway's legend to the exclusion of his real persona) and utilizes them to full effect. Bold posteuring gives way to deceitful maneuvering gives way to more success and more psychosis than Eliot ever bargained for. An incredibly fun read