The New Hemingway Studies ed. by Suzanne del Gizzo and Kirk Curnutt (review)

"On or about May 1986 Hemingway studies changed irrevocably" is how Suzanne del Gizzo and Kirk Curnutt describe the shift in Hemingway scholarship following The Garden of Eden's publication (10). While not as explicitly groundbreaking, 2000 was another watershed year for the field and The New Hemingway Studies convincingly lays out why. As del Gizzo and Curnutt explain in their introduction, around 2000 it became clear Hemingway "was not going anywhere" and new avenues of exploration dedicated to the author and his literature emerged (9). Given the amount of scholarship that has appeared in the last 20 years, addressing where the field has been along with where it may go is an ambitious undertaking. However, The New Hemingway Studies does it with aplomb; del Gizzo and Curnutt have brought together 15 excellent essays that thoughtfully summarize and offer commentary on Hemingway studies' development thus far in the twenty-first century.

The collection opens with Part I: The Textual Hemingway, which focuses on one of the most fruitful areas of Hemingway scholarship: textual studies. Curnutt begins this section by examining new trends in Hemingway biography, including digging into particular periods of the author's life, drawing attention to Hemingway's relationships, and family memoirs. While each format's approach is different, a common thread Curnutt identifies is Hemingway's demythologization as a "Great Man" in favor of more balanced portrayals. Robert W. Trogdon's chapter on editing suggests issuing corrected, scholarly versions of Hemingway's work may further nuance understandings of the author, as current editions "are riddled with errors and contain alterations forced upon [Hemingway] by Maxwell Perkins and other editors" (37). With Hemingway's literature starting to enter the public domain, opportunities to publish corrected editions will arise and, Trogdon indicates, should be taken up.

From biography and editing, the collection moves to the textual material Hemingway left behind. As Verna Kale and Sandra Spanier articulate in their chapter on the author's correspondence, increased access to Hemingway's letters means new scholarly opportunities. These include re-evaluating Hemingway's relationships with controversial figures such as Gertrude Stein and Mary Hemingway as well as myriad options for digital humanities projects. Letters, as Krista Quesenberry explains in the following chapter, are far from the only material items Hemingway left behind. From pictures in biographies to objects in his archives and literature, "there is plenty of stuff left to consider" and Quesenberry outlines object studies' usefulness for engaging this material (75). Laura Godfrey similarly highlights the opportunities new critical approaches offer. The digital humanities have improved Hemingway's accessibility by digitizing his works and some archival material, but Godfrey suggests this access can be increased further through, for instance, creating digital maps for Hemingway's biographical and fictional spaces.

Part II: Identities shifts focus to critical lenses for analyzing the author and his literary output. del Gizzo's opening essay poignantly highlights how Hemingway's family is crucial for understanding the writer and his literature, particularly in regard to mental health, fatherhood, and the ways Hemingway writes about children. David Wyatt's chapter on Hemingway and pleasure moves from the author's familial relationships to his connections with food and sex. The rise in Hemingway recipe books—along with the writer's textual emphasis on eating, food, wine, and pleasure—connects him to modern foodie culture and, as Wyatt shows, makes more food- and pleasure-centered analyses fruitful avenues for future Hemingway scholarship.

The remaining four chapters in Part II are invaluable for scholars looking to understand trauma, queerness, race, and celebrity in relation to Hemingway. As Sarah Anderson Wood explains in her chapter, trauma studies is a relatively new field with great promise for Hemingway because "the representation of pain and coping functions as a conduit for bridging biography and fiction" in examinations of the man and his work (137). Queer studies has a longer history—both in literary criticism and Hemingway studies—but as Debra A...