Ernest Hemingway's life was lived to the fullest. "He was six feet tall, hugh-chested, handsome, ebullient, a warrior, a hunter, a fisherman, a drinker" says the author. At the age of eighteen he was awarded a medal for World War I. He then honed his literary craft and his macho image grew with his love of big-game hunting, deep-sea fishing, and bull-fighting in Spain. But by the 1940's the darkness of his alcoholism and violent rages began to affect him. He had become the patriarch of literature but he was plagued by depression and an insidious disenchantment with life. In this book the author explores Hemingway's fatal contradictions, revealing a man who was a much a creation as his books.
