This novel is Hemingway’s account of his life from 1921-1926 as a young writer in Paris. Still married to his first wife
Hadley, “Tatie” and Hadley are happy and poor. In the beginning, Hemingway was still
writing articles for a Toronto newspaper to support his career. He
describes taking Hadley and the money he earned to the horse races to place bets. Gambling became a quick way for Hemingway to make money, but it also became an addiction. Eventually, Hemingway all but quit gambling, and he enjoyed going to the motorcycle races just to watch.
After Hemingway gave up journalism to write full time, he and Hadly were so poor they often went hungry. He describes taking walks along the Seine to watch men fishing and to the Lourve to look at painting to curb his hunger. Although he could sell his short stories to German publications, American magazines wouldn’t buy them. At one point they couldn’t afford a babysitter so they left their child, Bumby, in his crib with the cat to watch over him. Hemingway joined a lending library that he felt saved his life. It was hard for him to find books written in English then, and finding reading material was a constant source of frustration. Hemingway read all the Russian greats while working on his first collection of short stories.
Hemingway describes his writing process in great detail. He first wrote in a hotel room that he rented for that purpose, and then he started writing in cafés as his financial situation improved a bit. He liked to finish writing when the ideas were still flowing freely so that he’d never be stuck the next morning. When he adopted his stripped-down style, he would spend an entire day writing and revising a paragraph to make it as bare as possible. At one point, Hadley tried to bring him all his manuscripts in a suitcase as a surprise, but the suitcase was stolen on the train. Hemingway had to start again from scratch, which he thought for the best, anyway.
The other expatriate writers living in Paris at the time are described in great detail. Gertrude Stein was known for her collection of paintings and her hunger for fame. She had a childish way of dismissing any writer who had not praised her work. At her many parties, Stein’s partner talked to the wives and Stein talked to the men. She and Hemingway were good friends until she started arguing with everyone close to her and driving people away.
His first year in Paris, it was a special treat for Hemingway to eat at Michaud’s where James Joyce and his wife ate and spoke Italian. Later they would become friends.
At the Closerie des Lilas, a café frequented by professors and veterans, Hemingway complained about being interrupted by Ford Madox Ford. He describes Ford as unpleasant to look at and half-deranged, unable to hold a sane conversation.
Ezra Pound is described as saintly man who collected his friends’ paintings although they had no value. Hemingway tried to teach Pound to box, but Pound was pretty hopeless as a boxer. Ezra loved to help other writers and founded the Bel Esprit to raise money so T.S. Eliot could quit his bank job and write full-time.
Hemingway met F. Scott Fitzgerald at a bar. Fitzgerald was pretty like a girl, but looked like death to Hemingway. Although Fitzgerald changed his early stories to make them publishable, after Hemingway read his Great Gatsby manuscript, he began to respect Fitzgerald as a serious writer. Fitzgerald was an alcoholic who couldn’t hold his drink, and a spoiled, rich, hypochondriac according to Hemingway. His wife had the top of their Renault cut off because she hated cars with tops. Zelda was also jealous of Fizgerald’s writing and encouraged him to drink so he wouldn’t be able to write. After Zelda had a nervous breakdown, Fitzgerald was afraid to take a lover because she told him his penis was unusually small. Hemingway checked for him, and it wasn’t true.
The end of Hemingway’s early career ended with him and Hadley living in an Austrian ski resort where HHemingway revised The Sun Also Rises. As Hemingway is gaining money and fame, he takes his first extramarital lover. There is a sense at the end of the book that everything went downhill from there.