Picturing Hemingway's Michigan - Hardcover

"Northern Michigan was not where your read about nature, it was where you lived with and in it. It was a place where bare feet replaced shoes and where the sounds you heard at night were the wind and birds, not the hum of a crowded suburb. Michigan was also a place of local color where real 'Indians' lived and where the legacy of the wild lumber era was still palatable. And, especially for Ernest, it was a place of solitude. Throughout his life he needed and sought private time to think and contemplate. In Michigan's forests and streams he spent hours - very often alone - observing and experiencing." - From the Introduction"

This is a compilation of personal photographs, historical images, and written excerpts illuminating Ernest Hemingway's significant ties to northern Michigan. In the early 1900s, the Little Traverse Bay area in northern Michigan was transitioning from a sparsely populated lumber region to a hotspot for tourists. Looking to enhance dwindling freight business, the region's railroad and steamship companies mounted elaborate and effective marketing campaigns to lure tourists from as far away as St. Louis, Kansas City, and Louisville to experience the area's pristine natural beauty and abundant leisure activities. Ernest Hemingway's family was among those who vacationed 'up north' in this era; his parents built a cottage on Walloon Lake near Petoskey to summer away from their home near Chicago. In "Picturing Hemingway's Michigan", author Michael R. Federspiel introduces readers to the Hemingway family, who were typical of many that vacationed in the area. He also paints a picture of life in northern Michigan between 1900 and 1920 and traces the many connections between the area and Hemingway's body of work. In chapters that incorporate candid family photographs from the Hemingway's own collection, historical images of the region, and archival excerpts from Hemingway's letters, journals, and stories, Federspiel shows that the region left an indelible mark on the young writer. To reveal the connections between northern Michigan and Hemingway's fiction, Federspiel examines not only Hemingway's famous Nick Adams stories, which were set in the area, but also later works like "A Moveable Feast". With more than 250 images, "Picturing Hemingway's Michigan" leads readers on a tour of the people, places, and activities that deeply influenced one of America's most famous authors during his twenty-two summers in northern Michigan. Anyone interested in Michigan history, the life of Ernest Hemingway, or the culture of the early twentieth century will enjoy this beautiful volume.