Speaker 1 00:00:28 Welcome, welcome, welcome. You are listening to Right On Radio on k a i 90.3 FM and streaming Live on the
[email protected]. I'm Josh Weber, and to none tonight's program, Ian Graham Lee talks with Peter Guy about his latest novel, The Ski Jumpers. A writer and former ski jumper faces a terminal diagnosis and decides to take one more leap into a pass of soaring flights and broken family bonds. Peter Guy is author of the award-winning novels, say, From the Sea, the Lighthouse Road wintering winner of the Minnesota Book Award and Northern Most. He teaches the yearlong novel writing project at the Law literary Center. Then the last part of the hour, Ian also chats with Curtis de Berg about his work traveling the world With Hemingway, hundreds of spectacular new digital images captured the odyssey of the adventurous authors. Remarkable life. After 40 years as university professor in California, Deb Berg retired in 2020 to devote his time to researching he Way and traveling the world in his footsteps. An ambitious journey no one had ever before attempted on this epic scale. All this some more. So stay tuned to Ray Radio.
Speaker 2 00:01:58 Okay, this is the End Graham Lease carer. I'm talking today with Peter Guy about his fifth novel, uh, Ski Jumpers. Welcome back to Ride on Radio, Peter.
Speaker 3 00:02:11 Thanks, Ian. Good
Speaker 2 00:02:12 To see you again. Likewise. Last time, last time we talked at this for Northern Most, I think, and that was right after you'd won, um, Minnesota Book Award for wintering. And now you're trying something completely different with, uh, the ski jumpers. Uh, very interesting point of view, structure you chose there.
Speaker 3 00:02:32 I could have made things easier on myself, that's for sure.
Speaker 2 00:02:35 Oh, I was thinking that. But, uh, that's not what authors do, at least good authors, and you're always, you're trying to experiment and push yourself forward and try different things. And, um, all the books have had a slight different point of view structure. Is that correct?
Speaker 3 00:02:49 I think so. I mean, I, I actually, uh, yes, they've all had different, well, not all different, but there have been a variety of, uh, of strategies employed. I think of it less, I mean, point of view is of course one of the most important decisions a writer can make. Uh, and I guess in each of my books, I've made the point of view to a certain extent a character. Yeah. Uh, or, or, or at least an in, uh, you know, it has an influence on character. The the point of view makes the story larger for the character that's living in the novel, and certainly that's true in this, in this novel.
Speaker 2 00:03:29 Oh, well, that's a good answer. Uh, let's just give you a little, give the listeners a little bit of a background on you. The author of, uh, the award-winning novels, Safe from the Sea, the Lighthouse Road Wintering, which as I just said, won the Minnesota Ward. The last one more than most, and of course you're teaching that year long novel writing project at, uh, the Loft Literary Center. And Peter Guy is born and raised in Minneapolis, where we're talking from right now, although he's not here, he's on tour, and he continues to live here, um, with his family. Where are you right now, Peter?
Speaker 3 00:04:08 Uh, I am in Decor, Iowa. I had to think about it for a second
Speaker 2 00:04:14 To think about <laugh>. Uh, that's from the voice of a man who's becoming famous <laugh>. Um, so you better tell us a little bit about, uh, Ski jumpers before I jump into my, some of my questions about this.
Speaker 3 00:04:28 Sure. So this is a book, uh, and, and the more I talked about it, the more memories of writing it have come to me. When I was finishing graduate school in 2008, I had finished my dissertation, which was actually became my first novel, Say, From The Sea. And I was, um, you know, uh, ready to start another book, and it was this book that I started. I have notebooks, uh, dated, dated 2008, and the first inklings in some of the first passages for this book stretch as far back as that. Uh, I, of course, well, maybe not of course, but, uh, I got sidetracked many times. And I don't know if I got sidetracked as much because I was struggling with the ski jumpers or because I was inclined to write other things. I think it was some combination of them. Uh, I had a hard time separating my own experience as a ski jumper, uh, from the characters in the book.
Speaker 3 00:05:29 It was a long process of letting go of my own, uh, my own part in the story, because there is a part of me in this story, unlike in previous books where there's, you know, I mean, maybe, maybe glimpses of me, but not, not the way that it is in this story. Um, but, you know, in the years since I started this, since 2008, I've just come back to it every now and again, and developed it a little bit, thought about it a little, little bit more, Tried to put a little bit of that distance, uh, that, that I just talked about between the story and me. And then finally when Covid came along, uh, we were all, well, most of us, I think, anyway, we, we were some combination of bored and scared. And, uh, the world suddenly looked truly different for the first time, at least in, in, in my recollection.
Speaker 3 00:06:23 And it, it seemed like a good time to bear down on this book. And I, so I started thinking about some of the things that I wanted to do as, as a writer. You brought a point of view early in the, in our conversation, and I really thought about who John was and where he was telling this story from. And in bits and pieces, the, the sort of, uh, three-tiered, uh, timeline came to me. And once I had it all figured out, which was a process that well took many years, and then a couple of months, uh, I wrote really quickly, much more quickly than I've ever written before. It took me about six months to write the last three quarters of this novel.
Speaker 2 00:07:06 That's because you kind of instinctively knew much of it in your heart. It feels to me, um, a very memoir like mm-hmm. <affirmative>, um, and, uh, you know, the, there's in our business, you know, we, we make this distinction between, um, the, the Roo Rama clef, which, you know, is a novel about things that actually happened, and, you know, a slight difference with, uh, books like James Joyce's, um, portion of the artist as the Young Man, which we designate as autobiographical fiction. Where does, where do you feel this spits in with those categories?
Speaker 3 00:07:51 I think, I mean, on the one hand, um, my life in no way resembles the life, the life of John Barard and my brother, who is, you know, certainly an influence on the character of Anton and my father, who is certainly a character, uh, uh, uh, an influence on the character of Pops. We each bring something to those characters. And I wanted, I mean, I, I, I was intentional about wanting to, I don't know, maybe capture their shadow or something like that. My father and my brother is shadow. Yeah. And so, so that, that part is definitely intentional. The, but the, I mean, the lives that they lead, the things that they do outside of the world of ski jumping are really quite distant from my own life and from the lives of my father and brother.
Speaker 2 00:08:48 So it's a, it, although it, it's feeling like it, it it's a memoir for the character John.
Speaker 3 00:08:54 Exactly. And that
Speaker 2 00:08:55 So much for you. So I think that's one of the things I just wanted to talk about. Dan. People don't usually think about this, but a first person narration in modern literature is a fictional memoir.
Speaker 3 00:09:09 Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2 00:09:09 <affirmative>. Yeah. And, um, we do, Well, if we think of it that, that way to write in such a way as it feels very true to life and very personal, and of course, that's what you've done here, as always, you know, you're very careful about how you produce the internal structure of people's thinking and their behavior. Um, how aware of you, how aware were you, um, of that kind of situation as you were rapidly finishing this up, as you've just stated?
Speaker 3 00:09:41 I mean, intensely and, uh, positively aware of it. I mean, one of the, one of the reasons I think that it took as long as it did to get to John, and one of the reasons that his story came as easily once it did, is because I was figuring out how to occupy his consciousness instead of my own. And I was figuring out how his emotional life would feel to him, not to me. Uh, and this is a lesson. I mean, this is kind of basic fiction writing as far as I'm concerned. Sometimes those lessons are the hardest to learn or apply. And I, and I, and I, and I think, and I mean, I don't think I'm certain that, that one of the reasons that that's true is because the ski jumping parts of the story in this book, and there's a lot of ski jumping, uh, both literally ski, excuse me, literally and figuratively in this story.
Speaker 3 00:10:37 Uh, that part is in many instances pulled right from my memory bank. So I have imbued John's consciousness with my own memories, for better or for worse. It's a, it's a decision that I made, but I wanted to, I, I didn't want to have to research in the way that I've always researched. I wanted it to be my memories and the, some of the experiences that my father and brother and I had together. And so, so I brought that to bear on the story. And, and like I said, when I'm doing that, and because I do that often enough in real life and in my own fond memories and, you know, chewing the, chewing the fat with my, my father and brother and, and friends, Yeah. Those ski jumping memories are pretty imminent in my life. I mean, I keep 'em pretty close to me. And so there was a, there was a, a process of whatever it is, divestment or making some distance between the two of us. Once I got it though, it was, it was pretty dreamy writing.
Speaker 2 00:11:42 No, that's good. Very good to hear. It's very encouraging. I think for many authors, there are two kinds of ski jumping in this, or let's say just jumping. There's the physical ski jumping itself, which was, we'll start off here. And then there's a metaphorical, just you, you just said figurative ski jumping, you know, the <laugh>, you're doing lots of jumps in point of view and all, all sorts of jumping around in, in, in a controlled way, uh, here, which I found fascinating. And the, the, the fusion of the real ski jumping and the figurative, um, ski jumping is what makes literary novels so interesting. But let's talk just about the, the actual physical ski jumping. You're a big fella, you're kind of like me. You're a over six foot and you're, you know, heavily bounded guy. And I, I, I never very really followed ski jumping you occasionally, occasionally winter Olympics and things. And I always noticed that the, uh, athletes in that sport tended to be small and slight. And in your book, um, Pops John's father is small and slight, um, didn't get much mention of, uh, of the size of, um, of John and Anton, his brother, uh, that I recall anyway from reading it. But you're a big guy. Um, explain to us, or disabuse us perhaps, of the cliche that, uh, ski jumpers are small.
Speaker 3 00:13:05 I wish that I could, I think one of the reasons that I, um, this sounds like I'm making an excuse for myself, I'm not, one of the reasons I never became an elite ski jumper is because I was one of the big guys, and there were a couple of big guys, uh, that in the eighties when I was coming of age as a jumper who made, you know, who, who, who, who did become, in fact, international competitors and Olympians. It wasn't, the focus then wasn't as much on, you know, tiny and skinny as it is now. Uh, so, so that's true. It's also true that when I was, you know, 18 years old, uh, though I was six two, uh, I was quite a few pounds less than I am now, I worked really hard to stay really skinny. Yeah. And, and, and that actually is one of the things, I mean, when I look at the, the course of my life as a ski jumper, one of the things that was incredibly difficult to do, especially at the end when I was aspiring to be an international competitor, was to stay as fit as I did.
Speaker 3 00:14:16 And it was, you know, it's one thing to, you know, to do your training, it's another thing to do all of your training and have to eat salad for a year at a time in order to stay <laugh>, which is really what it came down to. Yeah. And, and, um, I don't know. I mean, salad's terrific. Who doesn't love a good salad, but <laugh> sometimes you want a pizza.
Speaker 2 00:14:38 Yeah. Sometimes you want a steak.
Speaker 3 00:14:40 Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 00:14:41 Yeah, No, that, that was very interesting. And the, um, the whole descriptive structure of, of taking off from such a great height and increasingly greater heights as John gets older was, um, very collective in my thinking as I was reading through this. And my, my daughter as, as a lot of people know, is, um, Ingrid Ingrid East, and she's a, uh, a Nordic skier and just, you know, she was still in elite ski, but just a little bit too much of my, my bone structure to, to beat Jesse Diggins, you know, And, uh, Jesse Diggins is a friend of hers. So I really brought that experience, um, with coaching my daughter, you know, with, with sports to this book. And, uh, really understood to a great extent what John was going through with his father. I mean, there's times when she didn't wanna listen to me.
Speaker 2 00:15:38 There's times when I was, you know, pushing her on and saying, Come on, now you got, he can win this, and she'd gimme the finger, you know? Mm-hmm. It would infuriate her, you know, to be in the middle of that kind of battle, and then have to listen to me shouting from the, from the side of the, the, you know, from the snow banks mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And, um, so, so I really understood both what you were writing from the character, but also from you, because I of course, knew that you'd been a ski jumper. We have mutual friends and, and stuff like that, that are in that sport. Um, but then you take that to the next level and start using this figuratively, the, the leaping that the, that the character John is making. And of course, you make him a novelist, and not only a novelist, but a novelist. We find out very early in the book who is, uh, suffering from, uh, the onset of, uh, early onset of Alzheimer's. And it's beginning to show, and he hasn't really told everybody yet. And, uh, the structure of the book is that he's doing something you often do in your books. And that's driving up Highway 61 up, uh, <laugh> up to Grand Maray, which you, you,
Speaker 3 00:16:53 You, you up to Gun Flint.
Speaker 2 00:16:54 I call it gun flint, but we all know is Graham Marai, which I think is lovely. Um, and, uh, the story unfolds kind of like to like, like Torsa, you know, where we're on a journey and we're gonna hear different parts of the story. It's lovely. Um, so narrative leaps get made and, um, I, I suppose, leaps in, in history, and you hold back a lot of the time, the details that he knows in a very novelistic way, holding that, that, that back, um, that must have caused you some, some doubt as you were moving through that is when, when to let out information, when to feed that out to the reader, and, you know, so that it doesn't become contrived.
Speaker 3 00:17:45 Yeah. I mean, that's the, that's the fine art of doing, doing this, is knowing when to convey that information, when to give the in increasingly important. And in, in the case of this book, increasingly ominous and dark details of the past that has divided this family. And the, I mean, the short answer to that ob to that question and observation is, yes, it was very difficult to, to fit, to know when to, when to, uh, tell the story, when to put the words in John's mouth for greatest effect. And when you're telling a story that is mostly memory, uh, whose only forward momentum is this singular day in 2019, when John and his wife are driving up the shore, you have to find the dramatic tension elsewhere. And one of the ways that I found that dramatic tension was by holding back parts of the story.
Speaker 3 00:18:48 I mean, it's true that John, one of John's objectives for this day, his main objective for this day is to tell Ingrid, his wife about parts of his past that he has yet to tell her, despite their 35 year marriage, despite their very happy and fulfilling relationship with each other, he has kept things from her and given his, uh, diagnosis of the day before of younger onset Alzheimer's, he is, um, convinced that now is the time to do that. And the story that he has to tell her, we can't discuss it because it gives too much of the book away, but it is a dark, it is just serious. It is a criminal, um, admission. And, uh, and so I'm relying on that to do some of the work of convincing the reader that each page is worth turning, if for no other reason, then they wanna find out just what happened.
Speaker 3 00:19:48 It's, sorry. Oh, I was getting, but just gonna say it's so, so there's that element of the storytelling. There's another element of the storytelling too, though, which sort of fits under the umbrella of, um, you know, broader topics or broader hopes and expectations for this book, which is that John's experience on this day is rec recognizable to the reader, or to, to many readers, To most readers, hopefully as a sort of experience that we all have. It's the experience of living. So yes, he has this day to look forward to. He's going to visit his daughter in gun Flint. She has some big news for him. He's got plans to tell Ingrid about what's happened. So we get to see them in that very ordinary day, making the drive up the shore. But as he's doing that, he's telling her things about his past, he's reflecting on his past, and he's doing that by going back to a couple different epics in his life.
Speaker 3 00:20:50 And that's how we live. That's how I live. You know, I'm gonna get in the car, uh, tonight after an event here in decor, and I'm going to, uh, drive home. And as I drive back to Minneapolis tonight, I'm gonna have one eye on the road going forward, getting home. I'm gonna have another part of myself looking back at, at the day, reflecting on this conversation, reflecting on my, you know, whatever happens to cross through my mind as well as looking forward to what's beyond home and in the days ahead. And John doesn't get what's beyond home, what's in the days ahead, or he is not gonna get back for much longer. And that, to me is where
Speaker 2 00:21:32 This, because of the Alzheimer's,
Speaker 3 00:21:33 It's because of the Alzheimer's. Yeah. Right, right.
Speaker 2 00:21:36 Well, I think you, you get away, it's interesting that you get away with this because he's like, you always been wanting to write a novel, and this was the novel he always wanted to write. But as we said earlier in the conversation, it's really a memoir.
Speaker 3 00:21:55 Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2 00:21:55 <affirmative>, it's really a confessional memoir. And the, and because you are inventing the memoir, it is this, this novelistic memoir, and he's feeding the information out to his wife, partly, as you say, in a very realistic and choreographed movement. Um, he's a little afraid of her in some ways, even though they've been married for a long time. She's, she's quite a strong character. You always write strong women characters, which is appreciated. Um, but I, I, I think it, you sort of leave us with the impression in this book that he's either going to write the book, or the book has already been written for him in, in the conversation. Uh, I dunno how intentional that is, but that's how it came across to me at the end. I sort of put it aside and thought, Okay, I've got an ambiguity here. I've got a conundrum of my thinking is, you know, what I always do, and I read books, is, is to try to frame all of it and see how serious the author is about the structure mm-hmm. <affirmative> and about the unity and about the orchestration that's taken place, the verity. And, um, and I was left with that conundrum, though, which I, which I liked, I ambiguity in the books. Can you address that?
Speaker 3 00:23:12 Yeah. I mean, it became, uh, the, the question of John as the author of a book called The Ski Jumpers became a thing for me to play with. Yeah. And I'll just be perfectly frank about it. I mean, it's, it, it's a lot of work to write, uh, a novel, to write any novel. It was especially a lot of work to write this one. And it felt very serious at times and very, um, you know, I mean, the, uh, the dark notes were hitting very close to home in some cases. And I wanted, uh, you know, I wanted elements of play. And that became one the more I, I thought about it. And the more I let that play stay a part of the story, the more, uh, sweeping the gesture came to me. Now, as I understand it, you use the word ambiguity, which is one of my favorite words when it comes to the practice of writing fiction, whether it's narrative ambiguity, or moral ambiguity, or any of the other, uh, kinds of ambiguity that we live with all the time.
Speaker 3 00:24:11 I want that in my fiction. I mean, I'm actively trying to incorporate ambiguity as, uh, uh, as an element in the story. I think that it reflects life. I think that most of us are ambiguous, uh, characters in our own lives, uh, especially in our private lives. And, and I welcome all of that and, and, and try to recreate all of that for me. John isn't going to write a book called The Ski Jumpers. John's, in effect, telling us the story of what would've happened in the ski jumpers by discussing his past with Ingrid and reflecting on those memories of his boyhood and his brother and his father. Um, I'm the author of the Ski Jumpers, It says, So right on the cover of the, of the book. So, what is John's memoir? Partly informed by my own memories and experiences as a ski jumper and as a, a son and a brother, and as a husband for that matter. Uh, but, but it's John's story. I'm taking the story out of John's head and putting it down onto the page. And so it's meant to be playful. It's meant character, or excuse me, readers are meant to, um, puzzle over this, not because it's, uh, I, I want to vexx them, but because I hope that it's as fun for them as it is
Speaker 2 00:25:31 For me. Yeah. And it is fun, and it, it, it's fun to get into that conundrum in your mind and think, Here's an author writing book of the ski jumpers, and, uh, here's a, a character that, that wants to write book called Sea Ski Jumpers. And he's kind of narrating that book to his wife, and it's, uh, I think very successful in that way. As usual, we're running out of time, um, long before I have all my questions answered, but we'll do that over a beer next time. I see you, <laugh>. Um, quick, real quickly, what's up next? Number six in the works?
Speaker 3 00:26:04 Yeah. Number six is, uh, in the works. It is, um, about halfway done, maybe a little bit more than halfway done. Um, and it won't surprise you at all to hear that it's another book set on the North Shore. Uh, it, it's a historical novel though, and it's the first of, um, what I imagine probably being five or six books that is a, uh, a progressively deeper dive into some of the historical moments that define the region. Um, told, told to novels and fiction, of course, but that goes back, uh, that goes back to some of the first European settlers in this, this part of the country and
Speaker 2 00:26:44 Explore. Very good. Yeah, I always, when I'm up there, I'm always looking at those early, um, structures that they built and this, some of 'em are still there. Well, I'm really glad that, uh, you are writing that book. I love this. And, uh, love talking to you as always. And, um, thanks for being back on the show back on Rider Radio, and, uh, good luck with that next book. Uh, this is Ian Graham Lee, speaking with Peter Guy about the ski jumpers. Thanks, Ian. Time, Peter, good luck.
Speaker 3 00:27:13 Thank you.
Speaker 4 00:27:27 Recently I returned to the Osa Dorsey and the paintings of saison. I stared at them a long time, studying the thick brush brushstrokes that gave his works, the third dimension of depth. Hemingway wanted to write like Cezanne painted. He said, giving more depth to the combinations of words by using fewer of them. Hemingway's own life story has also endured, and his personal story is as good as any of his stories. He achieved his goal of writing in three dimensions, but he and his work endure because he sought excellence in writing and great adventure in living. Hemingway has stood the test of time, not only because of his writing, but because he strived to live a life that made him the hero of his own life story. Hemingway wrote so well, his pencil, his brush, his blue notebooks, his canvas, his words, painted pictures of life struggle, love, blood, bravery, and depth. He searched his imagination to produce stories that presented landscapes in reader's minds, vivid modernist displays of width, height, and depth. Often he lent readers their own brushes so that they might fill in some of the gaps consistent with his iceberg theory of writing. Arguably, Hemingway is the four foremost American writer of the 20th century, and his stories continue to be read in this. His literary contributions have added a fourth dimension by enduring from one century to the next. They have stood the tusk of time, time the fourth dimension.
Speaker 2 00:29:28 Excellent. They gave me chills. You've just been listening to, uh, Curtis El Deur reading from his, uh, coffee table book about Hemingway calling, called Traveling the World with Hemingway. This is Ian Graham Le and I'm very, very honored to welcome Curtis l Deur to write on radio.
Speaker 4 00:29:52 Thanks for having me, Ian. It's a pleasure to be
Speaker 2 00:29:54 Here. Yeah. I'm just gonna read your, um, little bio that's on the, uh, the dust flap of this beautiful book. Um, wow. I, I can't congratulate you and your publisher enough on this, uh, lovely book, Wild River Press. Uh, you can see the book, um, if you're near your computers, Wild r river press.com. It's just a beautiful book. So Curtis Berg became intrigued with Ernest Hemingway when he first traveled to Key West in 2005, uh, to visit a cousin who owned a vacation home near, uh, Geiger Key. After 40 years as a university professor, Dr. Uh, Deb Berg retired in 2020 to devote his time to researching Hemingway and traveling the world in his footsteps. He is a member of the Hemingway Society, a group connecting scholars and historians who love and promote the work of Ernest Hemingway. It has 600 members worldwide and is one of the largest single author organizations in existence. He is also a group administrator of the active Facebook group, Ernest Hemingway, which currently has 28,000 members. So I'm sure he'll be happy if any of our listeners want to join that group. So, um, tell us a little bit about the, the structure of this lovely book, Kurt,
Speaker 4 00:31:22 Right. The structure, uh, takes the timeline of his life, actually, and his travel, starting with his birthplace in Oak Park, Illinois, and ending, of course, uh, in Ketchum, Idaho in 1961. And so, after I, uh, took a sabbatical in the year 2019 and, uh, decided to move to Paris for a year, I decided I would do my very best to retrace Hemingway's footsteps during his lifetime. And there's good news with the Covid and bad news. The good news is I got to spend more time in Europe. The bad news is my trip to Cuba and to some of the locations in the US I needed to see were delayed. So, uh, like all things in life, uh, Ian, uh, the Covid 19 really disrupted my book, but in many ways, it made for a better book because I was able to spend more time in places like, uh, Madrid and be, uh, Bahamas and, uh, in Venice and in Trus, Austria and Losan Switzerland. These off the beaten path that Hemingway traveled, I've actually been to, I'd say 95% of all the places Hemingway has been. Oh,
Speaker 2 00:32:39 That's amazing. You know, you, you, you sort of have lived a portion of his life by following him like that. And I think one of the things that people loved about him, you know, from the twenties onwards, was this, um, this feeling of gaining experience and traveling and doing things that very few other people could or would do. And, you know, it's very nice reading this book. I really, it stayed with me when I was finished, I think because of, uh, the propensity of pictures. It's just a ton of photo photography in this and of all kinds, uh, tremendous variety, uh, between old photographs that you've, you've picked up black and white photographs and newer ones of him, and then photographs that you took. Um, it's packed. And I, I really responded to that. I think there was a, we're so used to seeing everything now on our cell phones, um, and on, um, video screens and, and whatnot, that it was lovely to open a book and have everything in one place. Uh, were you thinking about that at all with your publisher when you put this together?
Speaker 4 00:33:53 Yes. You know, I was concerned that, you know, coffee table books are, you know, almost po se now because like you say, if you wanna see a picture of Hemingway when he was age 36 living in Key West, you just Google it and, uh, you can find all the photos you want. But the reason this book is special to me, and I think it's gonna be special to people who, uh, decide to go ahead and purchase it, is you can open up the chapter, say to Paris, and you can immerse yourself in Hemingway, not only during the time he spent in Paris on, uh, 74 Cardinal Ru, uh, our, um, Rudo, uh, Cardinal Loa Yeah. Or Notre Dame Deshaun. You can see the photos of what the places look like today. Yeah. And so the juxtaposition of time is something that, uh, you really can't get unless you're a deep researcher on the internet here.
Speaker 4 00:34:50 You can open the chapter to Key West and feel like you're at the Hemingway lookalike contest in July, or you can open the chapter to his time in Europe when he was traveling to, uh, Switzerland and Austria skiing with his first and then second wives. Um, so yes, books aren't, you know, hardcover books are still, uh, you know, popular and even coffee table books are not only mementos for something that you could, you know, put on your, uh, living room table. But I consider my piece of, uh, work here to be as much art as it is authorship of a, of a biography. Yeah. So, uh, um, yeah, the pictures here are of, of old time photos of Hemingway and current photos that either I took or I hired a professional photographer to take.
Speaker 2 00:35:44 Well, it feels like you've, you and your publisher have created something which, which almost looks like a, a kind of museum piece. I mean, it's, it's the, the photographs feel curated and it, uh,
Speaker 4 00:35:57 Thank you. I, that's, that, that is exactly what we are going for. Uh, Tom Perro, my publisher at Wild River Press, incidentally, was a friend of John Hemingway, who was Ernest Hemingway's oldest son, and they were fly fishing, uh, buddies. Oh. And Tom, for years has published hunting and fishing magazines. Now, hunting and fishing magazines have lost market share because people can, like you say, get any information they want really off the internet. But Tom is, uh, kind of pivoted from hunting and fishing to more traditional books. But he's really a specialist in what, what I'd call copy table books, because he's an artist. He's a, he's a wonderful, he has a wonderful eye for laying out the page with not only the text, but also the photos. And, uh, I was happy when you introduced the book to say that you were marveled at how taken you were by the pictures.
Speaker 4 00:36:54 Yeah. And, uh, I, of course, I'm proud of the pros that I've written, and I think the pros should be read. I hope people don't just pick up this book and look at the photos, because there are some very interesting stories. And I would point especially to earnest time in Italy and World War I, when many people think he was an Italian, a soldier, uh, working for the American Allies in Italy, but he was not a soldier. He was a volunteer for the Red Cross. Yep. And when he was injured, he was not, uh, fighting the enemy. He was delivering chocolate and supplies to the Italian allies Yeah. Who were fighting the trenches. Yeah,
Speaker 2 00:37:35 Yeah. But he did go up to the front and,
Speaker 4 00:37:38 Uh, absolutely. Now, whether or not he went up to the front against, uh, orders or if he was doing this with orders is another, uh, interesting story. Um, we'll never know the answer to that, but, uh, you know, like all 18 year olds, he was full of, uh, bluster and he was full of vigor, and he wanted to see action,
Speaker 2 00:37:57 And he saw it, didn't he?
Speaker 4 00:38:00 He, uh, he caught the bad end of a mortar shell, which, uh, put about 200 pieces of mortar fragments in his right leg and his knee. And, uh, yes, he suffered, but in a way he was lucky because yes, he had a say serious leg injury, but it was not life threatening. Nora, was it really threatening to lose his leg. So he kinda won the lottery by getting the experience of being in combat without, without actually being in combat and without actually being seriously wounded. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:38:32 And the man next to him, which you write about really quite beautifully, was killed,
Speaker 4 00:38:39 You know, that man's name was Ella Tamini. Yeah. And it's unusual that Hemingway always loved giving, uh, paying tribute to the hero. And the, the, the writers' a biography biographers usually refer to these as the Hemingway Code Heroes. And these code heroes are brave, and they, uh, they, they're a courageous under, uh, threat of death. And they don't brag about their accomplishments. They let their word, they let their actions speak for themselves. Well, you would think Hemmingway would've given Fidelity, campini some credit, uh, for having, uh, lost his life in the trenches. And there is one Red Cross report that says, Campini may have intentionally put himself between the mortar bomb and Hemingway, thereby sparing Hemingway's life. So yes, Campini is a Hemingway code hero, and one of the mysteries is why didn't Hemingway ever give this man the credit that he deserved for paying the ultimate price in war? Yeah. Uh, and that was Tini. And I would love to see a movie about Fidelity Campini, actually. And maybe someday there will be one.
Speaker 2 00:39:54 Oh, we, we'll have to write that
Speaker 4 00:39:56 <laugh>. Right
Speaker 2 00:39:58 On. Let's talk for a moment about you. You were just talking about how you hoped people will read the Pros. Um, I loved reading the pros. Uh, you are very, uh, informal in, in the way that you lay out everything here. It's literally like talking to you now. Yeah. So, and I found that to be, uh, a little unusual perhaps for coffee table books, which tends to, to be a little bit, bit more formal, a little bit more scholarly a lot of the time. But, um, this went beautifully with the, with the character that we know of, of Hemingway and the ease with which he used the English language. And yours isn't the same as his, It's, you're not really influenced, um, stylistically by him, but you, what you do do is to keep things very simple and clear. Um, there's no message. Thank you.
Speaker 2 00:40:51 You get straight to the point. There's really a pleasure to read it. And there's, there's not much of it. I mean, it's, um, and it's got a really nice print. It's very easy to read. I mean, I would highly recommend this to all Hemingway, um, Theos. And, um, this is something that I, I was quite surprised with, you know, seeing, having this, I've got a lot of these books, and as you know, I, I run after press here in the Twin Cities. And, uh, we do coffee, quite a few coffee table books, usually about art. Um, so I'm used to them. And, uh, this one I was, was different from everything I've ever read before. And that was, I was literally in it. And, and I loved having the photographs instead of doing it the, the way we now do it. And it's been ages since I've gone into a book and been completely hauled into it with, with the pros and the Victor E Element. So congratulations on doing that. You, you caught, I'm like, Mikey, in that old ed ad, you know how everything,
Speaker 4 00:41:55 You know. Right.
Speaker 2 00:41:56 And I'd really like this, you know, so, you know, well done. I mean, it,
Speaker 4 00:42:00 It was, Thank you. Fantastic. You know, I, I think there's a lot to be said when a writer, a biographer, visits the place of the subject that he's studying because, uh, once I have seen, say the hotel room that he and his first wife Hadley lived in when they first moved to Paris, or when I actually climbed the same stairwell that Hemingway did, uh, when he first moved to Paris, uh, in, uh, the Contra Scarp area. And, you know, um, for the most part, Ian, I've gotten, and I've been very happy with the reviews of the book, but there was one review, and one, it was a magazine, actually, a hunting and fishing magazine where the, uh, the editor, uh, used a term I had never heard before. He, he referred to me as an academic boy year in that, you know, the excitement I have in, uh, in going to Spain and seeing the hotel room where he started writing a farewell to arms, Yes, that gives me a thrill.
Speaker 4 00:42:56 Um, but that does not make me a boy. You're by any means, um, any more than it makes a biographer or an academic who studies Hemingway and, uh, and scrutinizes his life and his writing. I mean, everyone who likes Hemingway does so for a different reason. They may do so because they like his stories. They may do so because they like his life story and his, uh, and his, uh, heman image of the deep sea fisherman and the Bullfighter. Um, but to each his own, Ian, if you like, Hemingway's writing and his life story, uh, go for it. You know, uh, you know, there are, there's so much to like and appreciate about him without having to like the man. Um, I personally like the man. I think he was tortured. Yeah. Uh, he killed himself just before he turned age 62. Uh, and, uh, yeah, you know, he became a great writer, I think, because he wanted to experience those things that he wanted to become an expert on. And the only way you can become an expert is through experience.
Speaker 2 00:44:00 Yeah, that's right. And it's, uh, you, we share a recent visit to catch him. Um, I was there with him a while ago. I think I told you about this when we talked earlier. Yes. And, uh, it was quite something to stand by that grave. The reason I got always liked him was, uh, from a very early age when I started reading him, was I sensed the, the damage in a, a macho type of guy, and a very strong man. I sensed the sensitivity behind that. Um, which is very much my dad. My dad, my dad had a, um, he, he'd shot a buffalo in India, and he had it over the mantle piece when we, when I was scared, the living daylights outta me every time I went in the front room, you know? And, uh, but you know, I didn't know, I don't know if he ever read Hemingway or, or what, but he lived a little bit of this life in, uh, in India and, uh, a little bit of Africa.
Speaker 4 00:44:55 Interesting.
Speaker 2 00:44:55 That is like, as I grew up and started to read Hemingway, my dad was long gone by then, I started to feel this. And I think it, you know, my dad was a very, very difficult person, and, um, a nightmare in many ways. But there was that sensitivity beneath him, which I think caused, uh, depression. And, uh, let's talk a little bit about having was depression. You, you, you remind us that he killed himself at the age 62, which is very, very young. And, uh, by today's standards anyway. And of course, a lot of people don't know that he was down at the Mayo Clinic here in Minnesota. Uh, tell us a little bit about that.
Speaker 4 00:45:35 Yes. Um, you know, I'll, I'll start with the Mayo Clinic. Um, after the book was published, Ian, I, I wanted to continue, you know, walking in Hemingway's footsteps. So I went to the Mayo Clinic, and I actually asked at the information desk if I could talk to maybe, uh, someone there that was an archivist that could tell me about Hemingway's stay back in 1960 in the winter. And then he returned in April of 61 for a second visit. And sure enough, there was a 99 year old nun named Sister Lauren Winant. And I was introduced to her just, uh, last summer. And she, uh, knew Hemingway. She was 33 years old when Hemingway was first, um, brought to the hospital suffering from depression. And she said that he, she was assigned to his ward, and when he was dismissed, she gave him, or Hemingway gave her two gifts.
Speaker 4 00:46:33 One was a book with his, uh, uh, inscription for the Old Man of the Sea, the book. And another one was a little silver Christmas tree that he gave to her. And so I asked her, of course, did she still have this book? And she said, Oh, yes, it might be somewhere down in the vault. Um, I'll ask one of my assistants to go look for it. While the assistant went to look for it, she couldn't find the book inscribed to Sister Lauren, but there was a book inscribed to Sister Immaculata. Oh. And he said, When my, it seems my luck is running good again, or something like that, and that he will soon be able to write well again. And the date on this book was June 15th, 1961, which was later than the last known words that Hemingway had ever written good for. And so, um, I would, you know, I'm gonna pat myself on the back here a a little bit. I, uh, through my, uh, research I have now uncovered what now seems to be Hemingway's last written words was to a nun at the Mayo Clinic.
Speaker 2 00:47:39 Oh, that's fantastic. Did you happen to buy the book offer for 10 bucks?
Speaker 4 00:47:44 <laugh>? You know, I told the Mayo Clinic that they should get in touch with the Penn State Hemingway Letters project, uh, led by professor Sandra Spanier. And in fact, uh, Professor Spanier did reach out to the Mayo Clinic, and, uh, they are now in touch with, uh, Sister Lauren. Uh, I'm not sure if they're going to try to acquire the book for their own archives. They're Hemingway archives. But personally, I would love to see this book in the, uh, uh, JFK library in the Hemingway collection there. Hmm. Because if there's any home that it should belong, if not the Mayo Clinic, it belongs in the, uh, Hemingway collection at the best library in the world for Hemingway artifacts.
Speaker 2 00:48:28 That's really interesting. Um, let's just go back to, um, for a moment to a part of the story, uh, the Hemingway story and your book, um, to Paris. In the early days when they were together, and this is simply because I've been there too, to, um, you know, where he, he lived on, uh, Car Cardinal, Lemon Street <laugh> in Paris. Um, you know, and, uh, I, when I'm in Paris, which is quite often, my other half, Sue and I love to go there, and we usually stay down on Rumo, which is just, you know, an alleyway away from where he, he lived shortly there. And you, you write well about that and had this very interesting little experience with somebody who lived in the building. Tell us a little bit about that.
Speaker 4 00:49:22 Yes. Um, yeah, I referred earlier to the fact that I was happy to be able to climb the staircase up to the third floor, apartment number three. And, uh, of course, this is where Hemingway lived with his first wife, Hadley from January of 1923 until they moved back to Toronto. And, uh, late, uh, 1924. So that Hadley, actually, it was 1922. They lived there in 1923, and then they moved to Toronto so they could have their first child, John Hemingway. But, um, I long to be able to go into the building, climb the staircase, and, uh, even knock on the door number three, which I know was kind of, uh, um, maybe it's a little bit too aggressive, but ultimately, um, I was having a beer across the street, uh, with my French teacher. And the young man that was entering the building must have been in his mid thirties.
Speaker 4 00:50:20 And she jumped up and she said, Excuse me, you know, my friend would love to be able to, uh, take some photos of the staircase. And he sat down with us and he said, I live exactly one floor above where Hemingway lived, and by all means, please come in, take as many photos as you'd like. Um, he said, My wife and I are going out to dinner, or I would invite you up to the, uh, my apartment. And so I had like 25, 30 minutes where I could, uh, go up to staircase, take some photos. Uh, and one thing I wanted to see is whether or not these Turkish toilets still existed on each, uh, landing and of course the third floor. No, it was no longer there. The fourth floor. No, but the fifth floor had exactly the church's toilet that Hemingway had described in, uh, his book, A movable feast. And so, uh,
Speaker 2 00:51:12 You did not, but you didn't put a photograph of the toilet in the book.
Speaker 4 00:51:16 You know, I think my publisher overrules me on that.
Speaker 2 00:51:21 What an old prude tell him he's a prude. I,
Speaker 4 00:51:24 I will. But
Speaker 2 00:51:25 Anyway, that's, I very much wanted to see the Turkish toilet.
Speaker 4 00:51:29 Well, maybe you'll have to wait for my next book, Ian. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:51:32 <laugh>. Ok. Well, maybe that can be the cover of the next book.
Speaker 4 00:51:36 The weight of that jolt, if there were such a thing could have caused him to say, Look, you know, I've had to live with this lie my entire life. And, um, you know for sure, you know, we could conclude that depression and alcoholism and the concussive head injuries all had an effect on causing early dementia. But there's also the fact that he had maybe some remorse for how we treated his wives. Uh, he may have had some remorse for the lies he told about his so-called heroism in World War I. So, um, no, I don't wanna spread a conspiracy theory because I love Hemingway and I love his life story. But after all the work I've done in researching and interviewing scholars in Italy, I think he was in the trenches against orders. And I think he may have even been wielding a weapon, which was against orders as well. And so this young 18 year old delivery boy, if he caused the death and wounding of Italian soldiers that could have been, um, that could have had him wrestling with the gods and could have tormented him his whole life, this young 18 year old delivery boy
Speaker 1 00:52:57 You are listening to Right On Radio on k a i 90.3 FM and streaming live on the
[email protected]. I'm Josh Weber. I'd like to thank our special guest tonight, Peter Guy and Curtis de Berg, and all of our listeners. Without your support and donations, k a I would not be possible. You can find more news and info about right on radio at k a i.org/right on radio. You can listen to all of your favorite right on radio episodes on Spotify, iTunes, Google Podcast, Apple Podcast, and so on. Please stay at tuned for Bonjour, Minnesota.
