Michael Reynolds recreates the milieu that forged one of America's greatest and most
influential writers. He reveals the fraught foundations of Hemingway's persona: his father's
self-destructive battle with depression and his mother's fierce independence and
spiritualism. He brings Hemingway through World War I, where he was frustrated by being
too far away from the action and glory, despite his being wounded and nursed to health by
Agnes Von Kurowsky--the older woman with whom he fell terribly in love.