Hemingway, the Red Cross, and the Great War

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“Steven Florczyk brings an exemplary clarity and exactitude to the often confused picture of Hemingway’s Great War presence in Italy. Through perspicacious examination of Red Cross and other documents—including judicious use of previously unexamined archival materials—Florczyk clarifies many aspects of Hemingway’s role in the war and enables the reader to grasp Hemingway’s deployment of this material in his war fiction. This book belongs, of course, in the library of all Hemingway scholars and all students of the Great War. It should also be in the hands of every student and every reader of Hemingway’s war-related fiction.” —H. R. Stoneback, Distinguished Professor, The State University of New York, and author of Reading Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises and Hemingway ’s Paris: Our Paris? “Florczyk has the instincts of a detective, and his meticulous examination of American Red Cross documents and other neglected artifacts both fills in some important missing information and definitively answers some longstanding questions about Hemingway’s Italian adventure and its aftermath.” —Steven Trout, author of On the Battlefield of Memory: The First World War and American Remembrance, 1919–1941 “With a confidence that comes from a command of the sources, Florczyk neatly corrects and enhances the conflicting accounts of Hemingway’s World War I experiences and telescopes this pivotal time in Hemingway’s life that loomed large in his creative imagination thereafter. Florczyk draws upon archival research into previously unpublished materials to provide the most complete, and the most fascinating, behind-the-scenes look into the young Hemingway at war. This compelling and eloquent book gives the ‘true gen’ about Hemingway’s wartime experience and his uses of it. As Hemingway wrote his Kansas City Star colleagues after his arrival in Italy in early June 1918: ‘Oh, Boy!!! I’m glad I’m in it.’ We should thank Florczyk for taking us there.” —Linda Patterson Miller, Professor of English, Penn State Abington TheKentStateUniversityPress Kent, Ohio 44242 www.KentStateUniversityPress.com 9 781606 351628 isbn 978-1-60635-162-8 ...