Hemingway vs. Fitzgerald

Ernest Miller Hemingway(1899-1961) was born in the upper middle class suburb Oak Park while Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was born in St. Paul in 1896 dying in Hollywood in 1940. They were both great novelists having much in common: 1. Both were middle class Midwesterners who had strong mothers and weak fathers. 2. Both were jilted in love: Hemingway ditched by nurse Agnes Kurowsky in Italy and Fitzgerald failing to win the... Read Full Review

Hemingway and Fitzgerald were and still are my two favorite authors. It's a shame that their friendship at times wasn't as beautiful as some of their works were, but if you're a literary nut who loves either or both of these brilliant men, please read. Even if you don't like the end, it's worth reading just to see what their relationship entailed.

Throughout "Hemingway vs. Fitzgerald - The Rise and Fall of a Literary Friendship," Scott Donaldson has both contributed to and distinguished himself from "the outpouring of biographical material that has kept them both in the public eye." This is a well-researched and fully documented discourse on the eventual reversal of mentor/novice roles and the concluding "exercise in sadomasochism" between these two giants of twentieth... Read Full Review

While any study of a private friendship--even one of two such public men as Hemingway and Fitzgerald--must necessarily contain a good deal of speculation, Scott Donaldson's speculations always sound just and reasonable. He relies on the considerable documentary evidence left by both men and their numerous friends, and the dual portrait he paints is convincing. Much of what he presented was quite new to me--such as the ... Read Full Review