The Best Friend I Ever Had: Revelations about Ernest Hemingway from those who knew him - Softcover

"The Best Friend I Ever Had" is an unusual non--fiction book about people the author has known over the past 30 years -- people who knew Ernest Hemingway. Among them are Hemingway's wife, Mary; his son, Patrick; his friends in Cuba at mid-century; a jai-alai champion; and his best friend in Ketchum, Idaho, over the 22 years that he visited or lived there. Their comments and reminiscences about the literary icon are new and revealing, sometimes provocative, sometimes inflammatory. In these pages are photographs and documents never before published, including unreleased letters to Hemingway from his doctors at the Mayo Clinic following his shock treatments there in 1960-61. In the words of one academic researcher, "I thought, and was told, that the Mayo file was closed and unavailable." This book proves otherwise. Here are eight chapters of remembrances plus a final chapter with four capsule entries, including the story of the discovery of Hemingway's Toronto Star typewriter. You'll find "The Best Friend" a font of fresh information that discloses the complexity of the man behind the legend.

An ardent interest in Ernest Hemingway has been a sideline occupation for David Nuffer since 1958. The occupation that pays the bills is public relations. He's been in the business for more than 50 years, and in 1974 founded his own firm, where he now serves as board chairman. Nuffer's enthusiasm for Hemingway began with the reading of "Death in the Afternoon," which he deems the best treatise on bullfighting ever written. He's collected first editions of nearly all of the author's books, and has visited more than 160 Hemingway-related sites in Canada, Cuba, Europe, and the U.S., including places the author was born, lived, worked, and died. Nuffer's "The Walkable Feast - Five Café-to-Café Walks to the Places of Ernest Hemingway in His Early Years in Paris" was published in 1999.