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A Family Memoir
The Lyons Press
May 2007
On Sale: May 1, 2007
Featuring: Gregory Hemmingway; Ernest Hemmingway; John Hemmingway
224 pages ISBN: 1599211122 EAN: 9781599211121 Hardcover
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Non-Fiction Memoir
A memoir that is at once fascinating, compelling, and
heartbreaking, Strange Tribe reveals the peculiar dynamics
between Ernest Hemingway and his youngest son, Gregory, the
author's father. Gregory tried to live up to Ernest's macho reputation
throughout his life. Yet as a cross-dresser and (ultimately)
a transsexual, Gregory was obsessed with his "female half,"
and he struggled with personal demons until his death at the
Women's Correctional Facility of the Miami-Dade County Jail
in 2001. The media referred to Gregory as the "black sheep"
of the Hemingway family. Gregory's son, however, wasn't so sure. In this wonderfully
crafted narrative, John Hemingway reveals how Ernest himself
felt a special kinship with Gregory, and how the two men
(who both suffered from bipolar illness and shared a
fascination with androgyny) were actually two sides of the
same coin. Featuring several newly published letters between
Ernest and Gregory, Strange Tribe reveals their unknown
similarities. In the end, John comes to feel that in his
father's lifelong struggles, Gregory most exemplified
Ernest's ideal of grace under pressure. This is also John's coming-of-age story - of what it was
like growing up in Miami and Montana with his father and his
schizophrenic mother, how it took him years to deal with the
pain their illnesses caused him, and how he ultimately fled
the burden of the Hemingway name and family history, one
marked by multiple suicides, by moving to Italy in 1984. Now
able for the first time to confront the legacy of his
troubled father and famous grandfather, John also examines
his own life and role as a father. Along the way, his
honest, piercing, and uniquely revealing story forces us to
reevaluate the work of Ernest Hemingway, one of the most
important literary icons of the past hundred years, whose
persona continues to loom darkly over the often-troubled
lives of his descendants.
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