This is a fawning memoir of Ernest Hemingway by someone who should know better. ( )

I looked up Lillian Ross's Ernest Hemingway portrait article at The New Yorker because I was intrigued by a reference to it in Paul Hendrickson's new 2011 book "Hemingway's Boat". In the book, Hendrickson wrote: "So much has been written over the last six decades about Ross's profile, a precursor to what we think of as New Journalism. lt ran on May 13, 1950, and is titled "How Do You Like It Now, Gentlemen?", which is what Hemingway keeps saying aloud in the story—but to whom, and why, it isn't wholly clear."

The 1950 article is published as part of the 1999 book "Portrait of Hemingway" where it is the central piece. There is a 1961 Preface and a 1999 Afterword that have been added for the book. Ross's affection for Hemingway comes through in all of the pieces but most especially in the Afterward where she reminisces about her entire friendship with both Ernest Hemingway and his last wife Mary and the kindnesses and encouragements she received from them for her own writing.

For the story, Ross meets the Hemingways at Idlewild Airport and then spends two days with them in Manhattan while they are in transit between their home at the Finca Vigia in Cuba and a trip to Venice, Italy. "How Do You Like It Now, Gentlemen?" does make Ernest Hemingway come across as a bit of a clown at first, starting with his speaking in early Hollywood Movie Indian English at the airport and the insistent downing of three doubles of bourbon & water at the airport bar before the cab ride into Manhattan. Two bottles of champagne are also consumed that first night followed by a bottle of wine at a late lunch the next day. Perhaps due to the amount of alcohol intake, Mary Hemingway is a bit befuddled when she can't identify her own mother as being someone named Adeline who has sent flowers to greet the couple on their arrival at their hotel. This last bit is covered up in the 1999 book version where the mother is identified immediately, but the original confusion can still be read in the archived New Yorker online version of the article*. Marlene Dietrich makes a cameo appearance in the article as a visitor to the Hemingway's hotel suite on the first night where she shares tales of her grandchild. Hemingway's editor Charles Scribner Jr. and son Patrick Hemingway also appear.

The Hemingways and Lillian Ross were taken aback when some people were shocked by the portrait's first appearance. Those readers likely expected their literary icons to be held up with more esteem and pretense and not be described as scraggly bearded and wearing various ill-fitting bathrobes or coats and consuming alcohol at any available moment. The Hemingways had a right of editing to the story though and only used it for a minor detail (which didn't even originally correct the mix-up about Mary Hemingway's mother) according to Lillian Ross, so you have to admire their willingness to allow the truth to be printed. This is something present-day press agents and handlers would never allow. You may feel a bit bemused and saddened by some bits, but the whole book does leave you liking the Hemingways and not only for their generosity towards a young aspiring writer.

*access to this is via the summary screen at http://www.newyorker.com/archive/1950/05/13/1950_05_13_036_TNY_CARDS_000223553
but currently (late September 2013) and perhaps for a limited time only, the article is freely available without a subscriber pass at http://archives.newyorker.com/?i=1950-05-13#folio=036 ( )