The Best Friend I Ever Had

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The Best Friend I Ever Had is an unusual non–fiction book about people the author has known over the past 30 years – people who knew Ernest Hemingway. Among them are Hemingway’s wife, Mary; his son, Patrick; his friends in Cuba at mid-century; a jai-alai champion; and his best friend in Ketchum, Idaho, over the 22 years that he visited or lived there. Their comments and reminiscences about the literary icon are new and revealing, sometimes provocative, sometimes inflammatory. In these pages are photographs and documents never before published, including unreleased letters to Hemingway from his doctors at the Mayo Clinic following his shock treatments there in 1960-61. In the words of one academic researcher, I thought, and was told, that the Mayo file was closed and unavailable. This book proves otherwise. Here are eight chapters of remembrances plus a final chapter with four capsule entries, including the story of the discovery of Hemingway’s Toronto Star typewriter. You’ll find The Best Friend a font of fresh information that discloses the complexity of the man behind the legend.