True At First Light
A Fictional Memoir Of His Last African Safari

"Africa took them and changed them all in some ways. If they could not change, they hated it." That was the most important line in the book. Those who could not see the narrator become "village" have missed that line and applied their ugly American prudence to Africa, like the countless before who co......more

This book is even better, probably like most good books, the second time through. With the story and themes put aside, the second glance provides the reader with the opportunity to dig through all the bologna that forms the Hemingway persona. I get the sense that Hemingway is saying, "Here I am and i......more

Several years ago Patrick Hemingway went over to New York with a memoir that his father had written, and it was accepted by a fairly good publisher. His deal made an awful row I heard, and I think that was where we lost the truth, because when his father's book came out it was quite changed. It was m......more

I'm curious what this book would have looked like if Hemingway had edited it instead of his son Patrick who, by the way, did a great job. He reduced to half a 200,000 words manuscript. This made me think of a letter to Scribner in which Hemingway said he edited a 200,000-word manuscript to 47,000 an......more

If you are a Hemingway fan, you should find this unusual book. Edited and published in 1999 by his son Patrick long after his death, this largely autobiographical work provides an account of an African safari Hemingway went on with his fourth wife Mary in 1953-54 a year after he had received the Nob......more