King: I've been reading Three Soldiers by John Dos Passos. It's not exactly a page turner. He was one of Hem's cronies and was one of the reds who visited the Steins. Dos Passos however, while an avowd communist during his Parisian days switched and became an equally avid Nixon supporter. His relationship with the Soviet Communists had been an explicit one and turned him away from Stein's false utopia.
The movie Reds was based on Reed's work. And yes, Armond Hammer was a spy. So was Alger Hiss.
I read Ruark and Hemingway side by side and read the new remembrance of Ruark written by his secretary. I like to compare the two men and find much alike between them. Ruark lived in Hem's shadow and he knew it and he did not like it.
I'm not sure that Hemingway saw life as a problem to be brooded over, but rather as a challenge not to be conquered, but to become wrapped up with. He, and people in his family, before him and after, suffered bouts of depression. He drank his way through them, which made them worse, of course. Proper medication would have helped the old boy.
Was your dad Dee Brown?
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