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?You need an awful lot of luck when working with the sea and with fish.??A fascinating, unpublished letter obtained by us directly from the recipient?s familyOn HemingwayAfter covering the Spanish Civil War, in 1939 Hemingway purchased Finca Vig?a (?Lookout Farm?), an unpretentious estate outside Havana, Cuba. In 1940 he published ?For Whom the Bell Tolls?, which many consider his best book. All of his life Hemingway was fascinated by war - in ?A Farewell to Arms? he focused on its pointlessness, and in ?For Whom the Bell Tolls? on the comradeship it creates. During World War II, he flew several missions with the Royal Air Force and landed with American troops on D-Day. He saw a good deal of action in Normandy and in the Battle of the Bulge. He also participated in the liberation of Paris. Following the war in Europe, Hemingway returned to his home in Cuba and turned his attention to writing again. He also traveled widely, and at the end of their 1953-1954 African safari, the Hemingways survived a near-fatal plane crash, only to have their rescue plane crash the very next day. Though they survived the second crash as well, newspapers around the world carried brought the details to the reading public. Soon after, he received the Pulitzer Prize in fiction for ?The Old Man and the Sea?, a short heroic novel about an old Cuban fisherman who, after an extended struggle, hooks and boats a giant marlin only to have it eaten by voracious sharks during the voyage home. That book also played a role in gaining for Hemingway the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954. It ran in its entirety in five million copies of Life Magazine, and the 50,000 copies printed in book form sold out in ten days.In 1955, back in Cuba, Hemingway turned fifty-five and tried to follow his doctors? advice by reducing his drinking. In October it is announced that he has been awarded the 1954 Nobel Prize in Literature. All of his wife?s? efforts to protect his privacy were sabotaged by the crush of worldwide press and the fact that Hemingway invited any and all to the Finca Vigia to visit. In the summer of 1955 he was working on the filming of ?The Old Man and the Sea? starring Spencer Tracy. The pace of people and press, of lunches and drinking, finally takes its toll and in the autumn of 1955 Hemingway took to his bed for two months, suffering from hepatitis and nephritis.On his friend Mary LouA young American naval officer named Morris was on a training mission with the military and a liberty stop was scheduled for Havana, Cuba, in late January 1955. Mary Lou Firle, his girl friend at the time, and later his wife, was then a second year student at CCNY, and she arranged a trip Cuba so they could meet in Havana. She went a week earlier and stayed at Veradero Beach outside Havana with some other students. Their place at the beach cost $1.00 per day. Before she left she bet a friend that she would have Ernest Hemingway sign the book she had, ?Farewell to Arms.? Mary Lou and boyfriend Morris met in Havana. They went to the famous El Floridita for daiquiris and had dinner. She wore pants (slacks) which were unusual for ladies at the time. The next day they went to Veradero Beach. His ship departed on Sunday.A day or so Later Mary Lou telephoned Ernest Hemingway. When he answered she introduced herself and added, ?I have a friend at Fordham University.? Hemingway immediately assumed the friend was Prof. Bob Brown who had been in touch with Hemingway on several occasions. Brown was writing a book or articles about Hemingway. Hemingway told Mary Lou that his wife Mary was away and he had to entertain visitors from the French Embassy that afternoon. He asked her if she would come to his home and help him. Mary Lou agreed and Hemingway sent his driver to pick her up.At the meeting a member of the group, possibly the ambassador, said she looked familiar and that he had seen her at the Floridita with a naval officer. She stood out because she wore pants. After the meeting the.
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