It's hard to talk about a 600-page book in a blog. Suffice to say, if you are interested in reading a biography of Ernest Hemingway, this is the one you should read. I have had this biography in my possession for a decade and have only just read it through. I wish I hadn't waited quite so long.

I don't think there is even one letter written by, to, or about Hemingway that biographer James R. Mellow hasn't read. While the book occasionally gives too much detail about peripheral people in Hemingway's life, it sheds much light on the circumstances surrounding Hemingway's writing, which enriches the reader's experience of reading Hemingway's works and is just plain interesting to anyone who writes. It is told from a respectful but not obsequious vantage point, complimenting when appropriate and pointing out the many negative aspects of Hemingway's character, personal life, and lesser works.

The picture Mellow paints of Hemingway is one of a young man with great talent and boundless drive who uses people to his advantage and discards them when they are no longer necessary or get his ire up. Mellow's Hemingway is infinitely complicated and creative, carefully and deliberately developing a public persona that suited his needs and fed his ego. But he is also a man with many regrets and who feels tremendous pressure and eventually succumbs to overwork, emotional and mental instability, and physical discomfort brought on by a lifetime of accidents and injuries. As I read I was alternately impressed and disappointed in Hemingway, and altogether glad I would never interact with him. He was a drunk and a womanizer and a liar and he loved the unspeakably cruel sport of bullfighting.

But he was indeed a master of his craft.