
A.E. Hotchner's intimate memoir unveils the real Hemingway - complex, flawed, brilliant - through 14 years of friendship until his death. Beyond myth, this bestselling account reveals what shaped a literary giant while offering unfiltered access to genius and vulnerability.
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In the warm Havana sun of 1948, I first met Ernest Hemingway aboard his beloved cabin cruiser Pilar. This 38-foot Wheeler Playmate had become as legendary as its owner, named after both a Spanish shrine and the fierce partisan character from For Whom the Bell Tolls. Ernest introduced his mate Gregorio Fuentes with profound respect: "Went to sea when he was four... got Pilar through three hurricanes, is a peerless fisherman, and cooks the best pompano you ever tasted." What I didn't know then was that this meeting would begin a fourteen-year friendship that would grant me intimate access to one of literature's most complex figures-a man who possessed Nobel and Pulitzer prizes, homes across the globe, and devoted friends, yet would ultimately put a shotgun to his head on July 2, 1961.