September 10, 2025 • 24 mins
At One True Podcast we were sad to hear of the death of Patrick Hemingway, the middle son of Ernest, who died on September 2, 2025. Patrick Hemingway (1928-2025) lived a life that was truly Hemingwayesque: traveling like his father, living much of his life in Africa, hunting and fishing, and determined to maintain the legacy of his father’s literary work.
We invited Sandra Spanier, General Editor of the Hemingway Letters Project, to share her memories of Patrick, including his contributions to the Letters Project, her visits with him, and a poignant interview with Patrick that was conducted just a few months ago. Our episode closes with a soundbite from that June 2025 interview.
We hope you enjoy this immediate reaction to the sad news of Patrick’s passing.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_03 (00:00):
Welcome to One True Podcast, everybody.
I'm Mark Ciorino.
And I'm Michael Von Cannon.
At One True Podcast, we discussHemingway's life, work, and
world.
And it's great of all of you tojoin us.
We're here for a special episodeto pay tribute to the passing of
Hemingway's second son, PatrickHemingway, who passed away on
(00:25):
September 2nd, 2025 at the ageof 97.
Patrick is somebody, Michael, wealways would have loved to have
on the show He was in ill healthin the last few years, so we
weren't able to make thathappen.
Michael, I have to say, I nevermet him, never ran into him at a
conference, and never hadoccasion to speak with him.
(00:46):
Did you ever meet him?
SPEAKER_00 (00:47):
No, I never met him at a conference either.
Never saw him.
But I will say, you know,working on the final letters,
volumes, I mean, you get toknow, of course, anyone
Hemingway's writing about orwriting to.
I kind of want to make thatblanket statement.
At the same time, PatrickHemingway was someone who,
helped us immensely throughValerie Hemingway.
(01:07):
We had a lot of questions aboutletters to Patrick.
He's a key correspondent, ofcourse, in the 1957 to 61
letters.
And we had a lot of questionsabout what is going on at any
given moment in a letter fromHemingway to you.
And she took down questions thatwe had, added her own questions.
And when she would go over andvisit him, she'd sit down for
(01:28):
hours sometimes and go over someof those questions.
He was invaluable to the workthat we were doing and really
gracious offering his time andinsights, you know, going back
those decades thinking about,oh, what is that reference to?
SPEAKER_03 (01:43):
What a living repository of information and a
unique perspective.
We're going to invite SandySpanier on in just a few
minutes, who obviously dealtwith him for years about the
Hemingway Letters Project.
And I know that she believes theHemingway Letters Project would
(02:03):
not have been possible withoutPatrick's go-ahead and his
continued assistance.
SPEAKER_00 (02:34):
Kind of the popularity of the writer and his
work ongoing.
I mean, Patrick Hemingway is atthe center of that conversation,
certainly.
So we are excited to see whatshe has to say.
SPEAKER_03 (02:45):
Although we've never done a show with Patrick
Hemingway, he was never able tocome on for an episode.
I think we need to have anepisode about the book of
letters called Dear Papa, whichis edited by Brendan Hemingway
and Stephen Adams, the book ofcorrespondence between Patrick
(03:06):
and Ernest and also One TruePodcast has done a pitiful job
in talking about True at FirstLight which is the fictional
memoir that Patrick Hemingwayworked so hard to bring to
publication in 1999 well
SPEAKER_00 (03:21):
we've only been doing this for six years so but
I you know I think the point isthere are so many different ways
you can go with Hemingway and Ithink every year we're like oh
my goodness this is an amazingWell, with
SPEAKER_03 (03:36):
Patrick's passing, it did remind me that True at
First Light is a fascinatingbook to talk about.
And Michael, I'll just say, forme, maybe the lasting impression
I have of Patrick is his voicein the Ken Burns-Linovic
(03:57):
documentary, where he was one ofthe talking heads.
His voice was really welcome andfascinating and And it was
always enjoyable whenever hepopped on to share his memories.
SPEAKER_00 (04:10):
Yeah, that's one of the lasting impressions.
And for me, it's the manyletters from father to son and
how oftentimes just warm thoseletters are in the final
volumes.
So, I mean, just from thatperspective of someone working
on the volumes, I'm excitedabout the research we're doing.
And when they come out down theroad, excited when those letters
(04:32):
are going to be shared.
SPEAKER_03 (04:33):
So he remains...
prominent presence in thoselater years.
SPEAKER_00 (04:38):
As a correspondent and as someone Hemingway likes
to talk to other people about,you can tell that Hemingway's
proud to be talking aboutPatrick and he's proud of what
Patrick is doing.
SPEAKER_03 (04:49):
On the occasion of Patrick Hemingway's passing, we
offer this tribute episode.
And now we welcome SandraSpanier, who has had great
personal dealings with Patrick.
Sandra Spanier, welcome back toOne True Podcast.
SPEAKER_01 (05:04):
Thank you.
It's nice to be here.
SPEAKER_03 (05:06):
Sandy, it's so nice to have you on, and we really
appreciate you joining us toshare some thoughts about
Patrick Hemingway.
First, you worked with him, Ibelieve, extensively.
He was involved in the HemingwayLetters Project.
Is that where you first met him,or had you known him?
SPEAKER_01 (05:23):
That is why I know him, and those were the
occasions on which we gottogether over the years.
I actually first saw Patrick in1999.
at the Hemingway Conference inOak Park, Illinois, where all
three brothers were present, butI didn't have a personal
conversation with him.
I saw him across a crowded room,but it was really a thrill to
(05:46):
see Patrick and Jack and Gregoryall together, and Milton Wolfe,
the last commander of theAbraham Lincoln Battalion, were
all there in Oak Park in 1999.
It was Patrick who conceived ofthe Hemingway Letters Project.
He wanted his father's completecollection letters to be
published in a scholarlyedition, footnotes, all the
(06:11):
apparatus.
He wanted his father's legacy tobe treated the same way as other
major writers, historicalfigures.
So he really conceived of this.
This was a project that involvedthe cooperation of the Hemingway
family and the HemingwayFoundation and society, because
(06:32):
for convoluted reasons, Thecopyrights to Hemingway's
letters are actually divided sothat the Ernest Hemingway
Foundation Society, which wasestablished by Mary Hemingway,
owns the U.S.
copyrights to the letters.
And the Hemingway Foreign RightsTrust, which is the Hemingway
estate, the family estate, ownsthe international rights to the
(06:55):
letters.
So for this project to get offthe ground, it required both of
these entities to want it tohappen and to cooperate.
on a publication agreement.
And in 2002, I was selected bythe Foundation Society to become
the general editor of thisproject.
(07:16):
And at that time, it was anidea.
The letters are not all in oneplace.
They're scattered over 250different places, institutional
repositories, libraries, andlots of private collections.
Auction catalogs sometimes arethe only record we have of a
letter.
So just gathering the letterswas a huge undertaking, figuring
(07:38):
out how to organize a projectlike this, finding a publisher.
All of this took years toaccomplish and to the point
where we know we're never goingto find every Hemingway letter,
but we had what we thought wasas big a master archive as we're
going to get at that time.
And we were fortunate to have apublication contract with
(07:59):
Cambridge University Press,which is doing a wonderful job.
And they have a century oldhistory of doing scholarly
editions.
So Patrick was very pleased bythe fact that Cambridge took
this on.
This was in 2002.
In 2004, I traveled to Bozeman,Montana to meet Patrick and
(08:20):
Carol Hemingway.
And they very graciously pickedme up from my motel and took me
to their country club for dinnerand back to their home where
they had some very impressiveAfrican animal heads on the
walls that I could notpersonally identify.
But it was a veryHemingway-esque setting and
lovely people, just lovely, verygracious and pledging Patrick
(08:43):
his support to make thissuccessful.
And he encouraged familymembers, friends, acquaintances,
kind of put out the word that hewanted people to cooperate with
this project.
SPEAKER_03 (08:54):
Was Patrick hands-on or did he take a step back and
just let you do what you had todo?
SPEAKER_01 (09:01):
Oh, he was very much available.
to help in terms of answeringquestions about the letters.
He was not in any way involvedin administrative aspects.
SPEAKER_03 (09:13):
He did provide introductions, right, to the
letters?
SPEAKER_01 (09:17):
When Cambridge University Press took this on,
the first volume was publishedin 2011, and they wanted to make
a very big splash with this.
It's kind of a scholarly editionthat has a far broader audience
than most, so it's actuallybeing produced as trade books.
They're priced the way a bookwould be priced in a bookstore
(09:39):
in the market, not the way a lotof academic books are priced at,
unfortunately, more than$100 avolume, for example.
This is excessively priced.
They even had a book party tolaunch this at the Explorers
Club in New York and invitedPatrick and Carol, Sean
Hemingway, the nephew, and hiswife Colette were there.
(10:00):
People came over from Cambridge,England.
It was quite an event, quiteQuite a launch.
Very exciting.
And so that was another time Isaw him early on.
And he also, Cambridge made avideo with him and they wanted
me to come out to Bozeman alsowith them and the film crew.
So it had quite an interestingbeginning in terms of his
(10:22):
involvement.
I counted up on, I think, 17different occasions he and I
met, take a recorder and a bigfat stack of letters that were
marked with sticky notes and biglists of questions and took
advantage of the opportunity toask Patrick, who is the only
person in the world who couldhave answered many of these
(10:43):
questions about what certainthings meant in the letters and
were generally what his fatherwas like as a letter writer,
memories he had.
I'm very, very, feel very, veryfortunate that I was able to
have a conversation with himthis summer in June.
And it was a very specialconversation, although the more
(11:04):
so now that I know it's the lastone we will have.
But he was so game to answerevery question.
He had his hearty laugh.
I would read certain passages ofletters and he would find them
very amusing and then tell memore about them.
For example, in volume seven,which we're researching right
now, there's a longcross-country trip that Ernest
(11:27):
and Pauline take with Patrickand Jack from Florida out to the
El Bart ranch in Wyoming.
And there's this remark thatwe've got white mice trouble.
And it's like, what does thatmean?
We've got white mice trouble.
And it turns out that Patrickhad pet white mice and they made
(11:48):
the trip from Florida to Wyomingand they were running all over
the car.
And that's, you know, that's thekind of thing you would never
know if you couldn't talk to theperson who was there.
I also mentioned to him about,I've heard that the six-toed cat
at the Key West home are sort ofmore apocryphal than real.
And he said, oh yes, we had nocats.
(12:09):
They would have made very shortwork of the mice.
SPEAKER_03 (12:14):
Is that why they called him Mouse?
SPEAKER_01 (12:16):
Actually, no.
I'm sure that the nickname camebefore the pet
SPEAKER_03 (12:22):
mouse.
Predated that.
Sandy, do you think given theresponsibility of his father's
legacy that Patrick was waryabout entrusting you to all
these letters to you andbeginning all this project
because we know how famouslyHemingway said, I want all my
letters destroyed.
(12:43):
I don't want them publishedafter my death.
Did Patrick wear that burdenheavily or was he completely
confident in his judgment?
SPEAKER_01 (12:52):
Yes.
Well, I've asked him about thatand because Hemingway made it
very clear he didn't want themto be published and his view was
he must have known they weregoing to be published if they He
said his mother, Pauline, hadmade very explicit instructions
that her letters be destroyedupon her death.
And I think he was, it told itwas some regret.
(13:15):
He was only 23 years old at thetime, but he complied with her
wishes and had them destroyed.
His father said it, but he kepteverything.
So I think he felt after acertain amount of time had
passed that maybe the interestsof history maybe outweighed that
belief.
since his father did keepeverything.
(13:36):
In terms of the edition itself,at first, this was very, very
strictly going to be aprint-only edition.
And it was after the fifthvolume, he was so pleased with
how it was going, with thescholarship and with the rigor
that was going into it, that atthat point he decided that they
should also be publishedelectronically.
(13:57):
So that was a really hugemilestone after the fifth
volume.
So the fifth volume waspublished simultaneously in
print and electronic form, andthen retroactively.
Previous volumes had been, andthen from here on out, every
other one will be.
So I was very honored to havehis confidence, which he freely
(14:18):
expressed.
SPEAKER_03 (14:19):
When you were talking earlier about meeting up
with Patrick, you said you werehaving a very Hemingway-esque
experience.
Well, reading over his obituaryand considering the life that he
led, it seems like all the placethat he went are Hemingway
places and a lot of theactivities that he did were
Hemingway activities.
(14:40):
Do you see that sort ofparalleling his father?
SPEAKER_01 (14:43):
He said he shared a lot of interests with his father
and especially I'd asked himback in June what were some of
his fondest and happiestmemories of his father and he
said the times that we werehunting and fishing together and
he said wherever they were thathappened whether it was in
Wyoming or Bimini or Key West,they would do these outdoor
(15:08):
things together.
And that was a really sharedbond.
And then he talked about why hewent to Africa as an adult.
Patrick spent much of his adultlife in Africa, and he credits
that to Green Hills of Africa,which was published when he was
only seven years old, but alsoto living in a house with these
(15:29):
mounted African animal trophieson the walls.
And So I think he really didfollow in his father's footsteps
that way.
And I didn't sense the slightestbit of sort of resentment at
having to follow in thefootsteps of such a famous
father.
(15:49):
I think their relationship wasvery genuine, very person to
person, very loving.
And so I didn't sense any kindof competition, certainly on
Patrick's part.
And Hemingway, too, in his ownlife, letters says things.
In the book that Patrick puttogether with the assistance of
(16:11):
his nephew, Brendan Hemingway,and his grandson, Stephen
Hemingway Adams, he says in oneof the letters that you were the
only brother I had among mysons.
He loved all three of his sons,but he really felt a special
affinity and closeness withPatrick.
SPEAKER_03 (16:30):
Yeah, that volume is Dear Papa, the letters of
Patrick and Ernest Hemingway.
And so you are obviously, that'sa great idea to think about,
which is the number of lettersover the years that Ernest and
Patrick shared.
Does that relationship comethrough in their correspondence,
(16:51):
the kind of affection andaffinity that they have for one
another?
Oh,
SPEAKER_01 (16:56):
absolutely.
The letters that Hemingwaywrites to Patrick are very
funny.
And talking a about him also toother people.
He's very funny.
He's very proud, for example, ofPatrick's intellect.
And there's a letter that hewrites to his mother-in-law, to
(17:16):
Patrick's grandmother, MaryPfeiffer, from Key West in
February of 1939.
And he says, and would make afine lawyer for the Holy Rota
Romana by present showing.
(17:39):
He's 11 years old.
And I read that to Patrick inJune, and he just roared with
laughter.
And he also, this is followed upby another comment in a letter
from Hemingway to Thomas Shevlinin April of 1939, where he said,
Patrick got 100 in so manysubjects at school that we've
(17:59):
decided it must be a This is aparochial school in Key West
where Patrick also mentioned hewas about the only non-Cuban
student there.
And he said that his childhoodfriends were Cubans with whom he
spoke Spanish in Key West.
Hemingway also has anotherletter.
These are fresh in my mindbecause they're from volume
(18:21):
seven, which is what we'reworking on right now.
Hemingway is writing to, again,his mother-in-law, Mary
Pfeiffer, Patrick's grandmother.
And Hemingway says it's been orwill be almost a year since
you've seen the boys.
A year is a long time withGregory.
Patrick is always about thesame, the best companion that I
know.
(18:42):
And you always get thesecomments about Patrick being
such a wonderful companion.
The letters in the Dear Papabook are very sweet because they
show them joking around, for onething.
And yet at the same time,there's this fatherly tone of
(19:02):
care that Hemingway expressestoward Patrick.
So there's an instance in thefall of 1942 where there's some
questions to whether the schoolis going to be canceling the
Thanksgiving vacation.
And Patrick is unhappy aboutthat.
And Hemingway is extremelyunhappy about that.
And he asked Patrick to pleaseget the measurements of the Holy
(19:26):
Father's derriere.
This is actually from a letterhere from 1942.
If you can get a good rubbingfrom the head's chair showing
the size of derriere.
I will know what size of ironreinforced boot to wear when I
call on the good doctor to paymy respects.
So he's really jokingly takingPatrick's side in this that he's
(19:49):
going to beat up on theprincipal.
But at the same time, Patrick iscomplaining to some extent about
schoolwork and how hard Frenchgrammar is.
And here's Hemingway, the wisefather, saying It's school.
And one thing we learn in thisworld is that you have to eat a
ton of it, and you might as wellstart now with school.
(20:13):
So buck up and study.
And then in terms of Frenchgrammar, he says, French grammar
is as irritating as any of them.
It'll be good for your old beingto work it through, though.
We have to work out all we'reweak in to always compensate
what we are strong in.
And that's a frameable piece ofThat's great.
SPEAKER_03 (21:03):
Thomas Hudson was to the middle son, despite the kind
of awkwardness in the familyunit.
But he was sort of, I thought itwas very sensitively drawn up.
SPEAKER_01 (21:17):
Yes, it's a beautiful passage about the
three sons and about the middleson.
And he describes him as lookingsleek as an otter.
And he's wise, like, actually, Ihave it handy here.
The middle boy always remindedThomas Hudson of an otter.
(21:37):
He had the same color hair as anotter's fur and had almost the
same texture as that of anunderwater animal and he browned
all over in a strange dark goldtan.
He always reminded his father ofthe sort of animal that has a
sound and humorous life byitself.
Otters and bears are the animalsthat joke most and bears of
(21:58):
course are very close to men.
This boy would never be wideenough and strong enough to be a
bear and he would never be anathlete nor did he want to be
but he had a lovely small animalquality and he had a good mind
and a life of his own he wasaffectionate and he had a sense
of justice and was good companyso you just sense the warmth
(22:18):
there that's beautiful
SPEAKER_03 (22:19):
that's yeah that's beautiful sandy patrick's
involvement with the hemingwayletters project isn't the first
involvement that he has with hisfather's writing and posthumous
work there's also true at firstlight, which he did enormous
work on, didn't he?
SPEAKER_01 (22:38):
Yes, absolutely.
That was the Africa manuscriptthat was one of the big
manuscripts left in the vault inCuba that Mary Hemingway was
able to bring out afterHemingway's death in August
1961.
It was really the last bigmanuscript of Hemingway's that
had not been published.
And in 1999, for the centennialyear, Scribner's did publish
(23:03):
Patrick's edited version of thatAfrica manuscript as true at
first light.
So yes, he was very involved inthat.
And then he was also veryinvolved in the Hemingway
Library edition of several ofthe books that were brought out
along with supplementarymaterial from the manuscript
(23:24):
collection at the KennedyLibrary.
So those are wonderful editionsbecause you can read what was
published in Hemingway's timeand then also read some of the
drafts and the lists of titlesfor A Farewell to Arms and Those
are really rich resources.
SPEAKER_03 (23:42):
Yes.
In fact, Green Hills of Africais represented by Patrick
Hemingway, which is, as you saidearlier, a publication that he
would have been particularlyinterested in.
SPEAKER_01 (23:54):
Yes.
Yes.
SPEAKER_03 (23:56):
Well, Sandy, thank you so much for joining us on
the occasion of the passing ofPatrick Hemingway.
And we really appreciate youjoining us to share your
thoughts with us.
SPEAKER_01 (24:08):
Thank you.
He will be greatly missed bymany people, and it was a
privilege to know him to theextent that I did, and it's
always a pleasure to be talkingwith you.
SPEAKER_03 (24:19):
Yes.
Thank you, Sandy.
SPEAKER_02 (24:20):
The only thing is, when I finally went to Africa, I
found a place that was betterthan Cuba.
Well, you know...
Certain things are true and ifyou're interested in hunting
(24:40):
Africa is the place.
Welcome to One True Podcast, everybody.
I'm Mark Ciorino.
And I'm Michael Von Cannon.
At One True Podcast, we discussHemingway's life, work, and
world.
And it's great of all of you tojoin us.
We're here for a special episodeto pay tribute to the passing of
Hemingway's second son, PatrickHemingway, who passed away on
(00:25):
September 2nd, 2025 at the ageof 97.
Patrick is somebody, Michael, wealways would have loved to have
on the show He was in ill healthin the last few years, so we
weren't able to make thathappen.
Michael, I have to say, I nevermet him, never ran into him at a
conference, and never hadoccasion to speak with him.
(00:46):
Did you ever meet him?
SPEAKER_00 (00:47):
No, I never met him at a conference either.
Never saw him.
But I will say, you know,working on the final letters,
volumes, I mean, you get toknow, of course, anyone
Hemingway's writing about orwriting to.
I kind of want to make thatblanket statement.
At the same time, PatrickHemingway was someone who,
helped us immensely throughValerie Hemingway.
(01:07):
We had a lot of questions aboutletters to Patrick.
He's a key correspondent, ofcourse, in the 1957 to 61
letters.
And we had a lot of questionsabout what is going on at any
given moment in a letter fromHemingway to you.
And she took down questions thatwe had, added her own questions.
And when she would go over andvisit him, she'd sit down for
(01:28):
hours sometimes and go over someof those questions.
He was invaluable to the workthat we were doing and really
gracious offering his time andinsights, you know, going back
those decades thinking about,oh, what is that reference to?
SPEAKER_03 (01:43):
What a living repository of information and a
unique perspective.
We're going to invite SandySpanier on in just a few
minutes, who obviously dealtwith him for years about the
Hemingway Letters Project.
And I know that she believes theHemingway Letters Project would
(02:03):
not have been possible withoutPatrick's go-ahead and his
continued assistance.
SPEAKER_00 (02:34):
Kind of the popularity of the writer and his
work ongoing.
I mean, Patrick Hemingway is atthe center of that conversation,
certainly.
So we are excited to see whatshe has to say.
SPEAKER_03 (02:45):
Although we've never done a show with Patrick
Hemingway, he was never able tocome on for an episode.
I think we need to have anepisode about the book of
letters called Dear Papa, whichis edited by Brendan Hemingway
and Stephen Adams, the book ofcorrespondence between Patrick
(03:06):
and Ernest and also One TruePodcast has done a pitiful job
in talking about True at FirstLight which is the fictional
memoir that Patrick Hemingwayworked so hard to bring to
publication in 1999 well
SPEAKER_00 (03:21):
we've only been doing this for six years so but
I you know I think the point isthere are so many different ways
you can go with Hemingway and Ithink every year we're like oh
my goodness this is an amazingWell, with
SPEAKER_03 (03:36):
Patrick's passing, it did remind me that True at
First Light is a fascinatingbook to talk about.
And Michael, I'll just say, forme, maybe the lasting impression
I have of Patrick is his voicein the Ken Burns-Linovic
(03:57):
documentary, where he was one ofthe talking heads.
His voice was really welcome andfascinating and And it was
always enjoyable whenever hepopped on to share his memories.
SPEAKER_00 (04:10):
Yeah, that's one of the lasting impressions.
And for me, it's the manyletters from father to son and
how oftentimes just warm thoseletters are in the final
volumes.
So, I mean, just from thatperspective of someone working
on the volumes, I'm excitedabout the research we're doing.
And when they come out down theroad, excited when those letters
(04:32):
are going to be shared.
SPEAKER_03 (04:33):
So he remains...
prominent presence in thoselater years.
SPEAKER_00 (04:38):
As a correspondent and as someone Hemingway likes
to talk to other people about,you can tell that Hemingway's
proud to be talking aboutPatrick and he's proud of what
Patrick is doing.
SPEAKER_03 (04:49):
On the occasion of Patrick Hemingway's passing, we
offer this tribute episode.
And now we welcome SandraSpanier, who has had great
personal dealings with Patrick.
Sandra Spanier, welcome back toOne True Podcast.
SPEAKER_01 (05:04):
Thank you.
It's nice to be here.
SPEAKER_03 (05:06):
Sandy, it's so nice to have you on, and we really
appreciate you joining us toshare some thoughts about
Patrick Hemingway.
First, you worked with him, Ibelieve, extensively.
He was involved in the HemingwayLetters Project.
Is that where you first met him,or had you known him?
SPEAKER_01 (05:23):
That is why I know him, and those were the
occasions on which we gottogether over the years.
I actually first saw Patrick in1999.
at the Hemingway Conference inOak Park, Illinois, where all
three brothers were present, butI didn't have a personal
conversation with him.
I saw him across a crowded room,but it was really a thrill to
(05:46):
see Patrick and Jack and Gregoryall together, and Milton Wolfe,
the last commander of theAbraham Lincoln Battalion, were
all there in Oak Park in 1999.
It was Patrick who conceived ofthe Hemingway Letters Project.
He wanted his father's completecollection letters to be
published in a scholarlyedition, footnotes, all the
(06:11):
apparatus.
He wanted his father's legacy tobe treated the same way as other
major writers, historicalfigures.
So he really conceived of this.
This was a project that involvedthe cooperation of the Hemingway
family and the HemingwayFoundation and society, because
(06:32):
for convoluted reasons, Thecopyrights to Hemingway's
letters are actually divided sothat the Ernest Hemingway
Foundation Society, which wasestablished by Mary Hemingway,
owns the U.S.
copyrights to the letters.
And the Hemingway Foreign RightsTrust, which is the Hemingway
estate, the family estate, ownsthe international rights to the
(06:55):
letters.
So for this project to get offthe ground, it required both of
these entities to want it tohappen and to cooperate.
on a publication agreement.
And in 2002, I was selected bythe Foundation Society to become
the general editor of thisproject.
(07:16):
And at that time, it was anidea.
The letters are not all in oneplace.
They're scattered over 250different places, institutional
repositories, libraries, andlots of private collections.
Auction catalogs sometimes arethe only record we have of a
letter.
So just gathering the letterswas a huge undertaking, figuring
(07:38):
out how to organize a projectlike this, finding a publisher.
All of this took years toaccomplish and to the point
where we know we're never goingto find every Hemingway letter,
but we had what we thought wasas big a master archive as we're
going to get at that time.
And we were fortunate to have apublication contract with
(07:59):
Cambridge University Press,which is doing a wonderful job.
And they have a century oldhistory of doing scholarly
editions.
So Patrick was very pleased bythe fact that Cambridge took
this on.
This was in 2002.
In 2004, I traveled to Bozeman,Montana to meet Patrick and
(08:20):
Carol Hemingway.
And they very graciously pickedme up from my motel and took me
to their country club for dinnerand back to their home where
they had some very impressiveAfrican animal heads on the
walls that I could notpersonally identify.
But it was a veryHemingway-esque setting and
lovely people, just lovely, verygracious and pledging Patrick
(08:43):
his support to make thissuccessful.
And he encouraged familymembers, friends, acquaintances,
kind of put out the word that hewanted people to cooperate with
this project.
SPEAKER_03 (08:54):
Was Patrick hands-on or did he take a step back and
just let you do what you had todo?
SPEAKER_01 (09:01):
Oh, he was very much available.
to help in terms of answeringquestions about the letters.
He was not in any way involvedin administrative aspects.
SPEAKER_03 (09:13):
He did provide introductions, right, to the
letters?
SPEAKER_01 (09:17):
When Cambridge University Press took this on,
the first volume was publishedin 2011, and they wanted to make
a very big splash with this.
It's kind of a scholarly editionthat has a far broader audience
than most, so it's actuallybeing produced as trade books.
They're priced the way a bookwould be priced in a bookstore
(09:39):
in the market, not the way a lotof academic books are priced at,
unfortunately, more than$100 avolume, for example.
This is excessively priced.
They even had a book party tolaunch this at the Explorers
Club in New York and invitedPatrick and Carol, Sean
Hemingway, the nephew, and hiswife Colette were there.
(10:00):
People came over from Cambridge,England.
It was quite an event, quiteQuite a launch.
Very exciting.
And so that was another time Isaw him early on.
And he also, Cambridge made avideo with him and they wanted
me to come out to Bozeman alsowith them and the film crew.
So it had quite an interestingbeginning in terms of his
(10:22):
involvement.
I counted up on, I think, 17different occasions he and I
met, take a recorder and a bigfat stack of letters that were
marked with sticky notes and biglists of questions and took
advantage of the opportunity toask Patrick, who is the only
person in the world who couldhave answered many of these
(10:43):
questions about what certainthings meant in the letters and
were generally what his fatherwas like as a letter writer,
memories he had.
I'm very, very, feel very, veryfortunate that I was able to
have a conversation with himthis summer in June.
And it was a very specialconversation, although the more
(11:04):
so now that I know it's the lastone we will have.
But he was so game to answerevery question.
He had his hearty laugh.
I would read certain passages ofletters and he would find them
very amusing and then tell memore about them.
For example, in volume seven,which we're researching right
now, there's a longcross-country trip that Ernest
(11:27):
and Pauline take with Patrickand Jack from Florida out to the
El Bart ranch in Wyoming.
And there's this remark thatwe've got white mice trouble.
And it's like, what does thatmean?
We've got white mice trouble.
And it turns out that Patrickhad pet white mice and they made
(11:48):
the trip from Florida to Wyomingand they were running all over
the car.
And that's, you know, that's thekind of thing you would never
know if you couldn't talk to theperson who was there.
I also mentioned to him about,I've heard that the six-toed cat
at the Key West home are sort ofmore apocryphal than real.
And he said, oh yes, we had nocats.
(12:09):
They would have made very shortwork of the mice.
SPEAKER_03 (12:14):
Is that why they called him Mouse?
SPEAKER_01 (12:16):
Actually, no.
I'm sure that the nickname camebefore the pet
SPEAKER_03 (12:22):
mouse.
Predated that.
Sandy, do you think given theresponsibility of his father's
legacy that Patrick was waryabout entrusting you to all
these letters to you andbeginning all this project
because we know how famouslyHemingway said, I want all my
letters destroyed.
(12:43):
I don't want them publishedafter my death.
Did Patrick wear that burdenheavily or was he completely
confident in his judgment?
SPEAKER_01 (12:52):
Yes.
Well, I've asked him about thatand because Hemingway made it
very clear he didn't want themto be published and his view was
he must have known they weregoing to be published if they He
said his mother, Pauline, hadmade very explicit instructions
that her letters be destroyedupon her death.
And I think he was, it told itwas some regret.
(13:15):
He was only 23 years old at thetime, but he complied with her
wishes and had them destroyed.
His father said it, but he kepteverything.
So I think he felt after acertain amount of time had
passed that maybe the interestsof history maybe outweighed that
belief.
since his father did keepeverything.
(13:36):
In terms of the edition itself,at first, this was very, very
strictly going to be aprint-only edition.
And it was after the fifthvolume, he was so pleased with
how it was going, with thescholarship and with the rigor
that was going into it, that atthat point he decided that they
should also be publishedelectronically.
(13:57):
So that was a really hugemilestone after the fifth
volume.
So the fifth volume waspublished simultaneously in
print and electronic form, andthen retroactively.
Previous volumes had been, andthen from here on out, every
other one will be.
So I was very honored to havehis confidence, which he freely
(14:18):
expressed.
SPEAKER_03 (14:19):
When you were talking earlier about meeting up
with Patrick, you said you werehaving a very Hemingway-esque
experience.
Well, reading over his obituaryand considering the life that he
led, it seems like all the placethat he went are Hemingway
places and a lot of theactivities that he did were
Hemingway activities.
(14:40):
Do you see that sort ofparalleling his father?
SPEAKER_01 (14:43):
He said he shared a lot of interests with his father
and especially I'd asked himback in June what were some of
his fondest and happiestmemories of his father and he
said the times that we werehunting and fishing together and
he said wherever they were thathappened whether it was in
Wyoming or Bimini or Key West,they would do these outdoor
(15:08):
things together.
And that was a really sharedbond.
And then he talked about why hewent to Africa as an adult.
Patrick spent much of his adultlife in Africa, and he credits
that to Green Hills of Africa,which was published when he was
only seven years old, but alsoto living in a house with these
(15:29):
mounted African animal trophieson the walls.
And So I think he really didfollow in his father's footsteps
that way.
And I didn't sense the slightestbit of sort of resentment at
having to follow in thefootsteps of such a famous
father.
(15:49):
I think their relationship wasvery genuine, very person to
person, very loving.
And so I didn't sense any kindof competition, certainly on
Patrick's part.
And Hemingway, too, in his ownlife, letters says things.
In the book that Patrick puttogether with the assistance of
(16:11):
his nephew, Brendan Hemingway,and his grandson, Stephen
Hemingway Adams, he says in oneof the letters that you were the
only brother I had among mysons.
He loved all three of his sons,but he really felt a special
affinity and closeness withPatrick.
SPEAKER_03 (16:30):
Yeah, that volume is Dear Papa, the letters of
Patrick and Ernest Hemingway.
And so you are obviously, that'sa great idea to think about,
which is the number of lettersover the years that Ernest and
Patrick shared.
Does that relationship comethrough in their correspondence,
(16:51):
the kind of affection andaffinity that they have for one
another?
Oh,
SPEAKER_01 (16:56):
absolutely.
The letters that Hemingwaywrites to Patrick are very
funny.
And talking a about him also toother people.
He's very funny.
He's very proud, for example, ofPatrick's intellect.
And there's a letter that hewrites to his mother-in-law, to
(17:16):
Patrick's grandmother, MaryPfeiffer, from Key West in
February of 1939.
And he says, and would make afine lawyer for the Holy Rota
Romana by present showing.
(17:39):
He's 11 years old.
And I read that to Patrick inJune, and he just roared with
laughter.
And he also, this is followed upby another comment in a letter
from Hemingway to Thomas Shevlinin April of 1939, where he said,
Patrick got 100 in so manysubjects at school that we've
(17:59):
decided it must be a This is aparochial school in Key West
where Patrick also mentioned hewas about the only non-Cuban
student there.
And he said that his childhoodfriends were Cubans with whom he
spoke Spanish in Key West.
Hemingway also has anotherletter.
These are fresh in my mindbecause they're from volume
(18:21):
seven, which is what we'reworking on right now.
Hemingway is writing to, again,his mother-in-law, Mary
Pfeiffer, Patrick's grandmother.
And Hemingway says it's been orwill be almost a year since
you've seen the boys.
A year is a long time withGregory.
Patrick is always about thesame, the best companion that I
know.
(18:42):
And you always get thesecomments about Patrick being
such a wonderful companion.
The letters in the Dear Papabook are very sweet because they
show them joking around, for onething.
And yet at the same time,there's this fatherly tone of
(19:02):
care that Hemingway expressestoward Patrick.
So there's an instance in thefall of 1942 where there's some
questions to whether the schoolis going to be canceling the
Thanksgiving vacation.
And Patrick is unhappy aboutthat.
And Hemingway is extremelyunhappy about that.
And he asked Patrick to pleaseget the measurements of the Holy
(19:26):
Father's derriere.
This is actually from a letterhere from 1942.
If you can get a good rubbingfrom the head's chair showing
the size of derriere.
I will know what size of ironreinforced boot to wear when I
call on the good doctor to paymy respects.
So he's really jokingly takingPatrick's side in this that he's
(19:49):
going to beat up on theprincipal.
But at the same time, Patrick iscomplaining to some extent about
schoolwork and how hard Frenchgrammar is.
And here's Hemingway, the wisefather, saying It's school.
And one thing we learn in thisworld is that you have to eat a
ton of it, and you might as wellstart now with school.
(20:13):
So buck up and study.
And then in terms of Frenchgrammar, he says, French grammar
is as irritating as any of them.
It'll be good for your old beingto work it through, though.
We have to work out all we'reweak in to always compensate
what we are strong in.
And that's a frameable piece ofThat's great.
SPEAKER_03 (21:03):
Thomas Hudson was to the middle son, despite the kind
of awkwardness in the familyunit.
But he was sort of, I thought itwas very sensitively drawn up.
SPEAKER_01 (21:17):
Yes, it's a beautiful passage about the
three sons and about the middleson.
And he describes him as lookingsleek as an otter.
And he's wise, like, actually, Ihave it handy here.
The middle boy always remindedThomas Hudson of an otter.
(21:37):
He had the same color hair as anotter's fur and had almost the
same texture as that of anunderwater animal and he browned
all over in a strange dark goldtan.
He always reminded his father ofthe sort of animal that has a
sound and humorous life byitself.
Otters and bears are the animalsthat joke most and bears of
(21:58):
course are very close to men.
This boy would never be wideenough and strong enough to be a
bear and he would never be anathlete nor did he want to be
but he had a lovely small animalquality and he had a good mind
and a life of his own he wasaffectionate and he had a sense
of justice and was good companyso you just sense the warmth
(22:18):
there that's beautiful
SPEAKER_03 (22:19):
that's yeah that's beautiful sandy patrick's
involvement with the hemingwayletters project isn't the first
involvement that he has with hisfather's writing and posthumous
work there's also true at firstlight, which he did enormous
work on, didn't he?
SPEAKER_01 (22:38):
Yes, absolutely.
That was the Africa manuscriptthat was one of the big
manuscripts left in the vault inCuba that Mary Hemingway was
able to bring out afterHemingway's death in August
1961.
It was really the last bigmanuscript of Hemingway's that
had not been published.
And in 1999, for the centennialyear, Scribner's did publish
(23:03):
Patrick's edited version of thatAfrica manuscript as true at
first light.
So yes, he was very involved inthat.
And then he was also veryinvolved in the Hemingway
Library edition of several ofthe books that were brought out
along with supplementarymaterial from the manuscript
(23:24):
collection at the KennedyLibrary.
So those are wonderful editionsbecause you can read what was
published in Hemingway's timeand then also read some of the
drafts and the lists of titlesfor A Farewell to Arms and Those
are really rich resources.
SPEAKER_03 (23:42):
Yes.
In fact, Green Hills of Africais represented by Patrick
Hemingway, which is, as you saidearlier, a publication that he
would have been particularlyinterested in.
SPEAKER_01 (23:54):
Yes.
Yes.
SPEAKER_03 (23:56):
Well, Sandy, thank you so much for joining us on
the occasion of the passing ofPatrick Hemingway.
And we really appreciate youjoining us to share your
thoughts with us.
SPEAKER_01 (24:08):
Thank you.
He will be greatly missed bymany people, and it was a
privilege to know him to theextent that I did, and it's
always a pleasure to be talkingwith you.
SPEAKER_03 (24:19):
Yes.
Thank you, Sandy.
SPEAKER_02 (24:20):
The only thing is, when I finally went to Africa, I
found a place that was betterthan Cuba.
Well, you know...
Certain things are true and ifyou're interested in hunting
(24:40):
Africa is the place.
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